Entering The Unknown
by Forever Siriusly Sirius
Summary: "You're scared." "I'm not scared!" "Prove it." My cheeks flushed. I raised her chin proudly, grabbed his tie and pulled his lips down to meet mine. "I am not scared, nor do I have commitment issues." He smirked and wrapped his arm around my waist and kissed me again.
1. Chapter 1

**ZANNA POV**

I hate being new. I looked at the house my Grandfather had given me and I sighed. The wind whipped my long dark hair into my face and quickly brought me back to the fact that for some reason, my grandfather thought it would be funny to leave Muggle's in charge of delivering everything, and muggles have a nasty habit of asking questions.

"Miss? The movers are almost done, but they want to know where to put the boxes? Oh and we need your parents signature and the deposit."

Damn them. I suppose living alone has its perks but it's at times like these that I really wish I was of age so I could just obliviate him. I bit my lip nervously and tried to come up with a good reason as to why I had no legal guardian available to sign the forms.

"Ummm, okay just put the boxes in the lounge - as for the signatures, unless you want to wait here until 3am in the morning, I suggest you let me sign it." I laughed, hoping he would fall for it.

His face furrowed in confusion. Apparently he was going to be difficult.

"My father is a lawyer and sometimes he gets a little too caught up in his work. So yeah can I just sign it?" I hurriedly explained.

Merlin. I have nothing against muggles, really I don't but it's at times like these that I really want to strangle them. I absently handed over the envelope with the money in it.

"Well what about your mother? Where are you going to school? How old are you? Are you always home alone?"

I tensed. I let out a nervous laugh and prayed that he would just disappear. I signed the form while he was busy looking through the envelope, checking it was all there.

"I go to a boarding school up in Scotland. Now there's your signature, do you need any more convincing?" I had slipped a few pounds into his hand, the way my grandfather taught me. I wasn't very good at being discreet but it did the job nevertheless.

His face widened in shock before comprehension dawned on his face.

He eagerly nodded,

"Uhhh, umm, sure here you go - just sign here and here. Do you want any extra help moving in? I mean I can help unpack boxes if you want...for free of course"

I quickly ushered him out of the house.

"No thank you."

I tried to be polite, I honestly did, but I think I came off a little sharp. I narrowed my eyes coolly and smiled as he recoiled. There was a ringing and I thought at the thought of being saved by a muggle phone. Saved by the bell... literally.

"Well, we better go, that's my boss. But let me know if you need anything ok? Here, this is so you can reach me after hours"

I took the card and grimaced. Ah well give him points for trying at least. The minute he was out of sight I ripped it up.

**James POV**

"James? Come here" a voice called from downstairs.

I walked downstairs to the kitchen where my mother was holding a fresh batch of cookies – my favourite cookies.

"Those for me?" I asked hopefully running a hand through my messy brown hair while the other reached out to grab a cookie. She slapped my hand away.

"Tsk James! No these are for the neighbours"

"You mean old Tom and Jerry?" She sighed at the use of my 'inappropriate' nicknames for the old couple that lived across the road.

"How many times do I have to tell you not to call them that? Their names are Zelda and Septimus."

"But seriously she looks like a cat and he really does look like a mouse! Plus they fight like all the time! Hence 'Tom and Jerry-"

I was about to say more when she cut me off.

"That's beside the point. No these are not for you or ZELDA and SEPTIMUS-"

"Ha! Zeptimus!"

"James." She glared at me until I shut up.

"This is for the girl that just moved in next door."

I got the feeling that she knew more about this girl than she let on, but then again my mother knew everything about everyone so I let it slide.

Suddenly a thought dawned on me.  
"Mum what if she's a muggle?" A muggle in the house? What if she found out?

She waved off my concerns with a wave if her hand.

"Just invite the girl over for dinner. Seems like a neighbourly thing to do."

I was about to argue when my father shoved me out the door, winking as he did so.

Her house was on old Victorian Era mansion like the rest of the houses in the area. I could never understand people's fascination with them. Apart from the fact that they were big and full of secret passageways, that is.

I knocked on the door and was greeted by the sound of a dog barking. I jumped back a little, startled by the abrupt sound.

A girl, about my age answered. She tossed her hair over her shoulders and calmed the dog down muttering in some foreign language that sounded vaguely Eastern European.

"Sorry about Molly, she gets excited when we have visitors." She smiled.

I shook my head. "You're lucky to have a dog. Diana- my little sister- and I both want one but we're not allowed." I paused and handed her the cookies.

"Thanks, come in. What did you say your name was again?" Her eyebrows furrowed in concentration as she tried to imagine my name.

"Ladies first." I grinned and made a sweeping gesture with my hands. I noticed her glare and my grin widened.

"What? Chivalry isn't dead you know." I said innocently.

She snorted. "Chivalry my arse. I asked first."

I laughed but obliged. "I'm James, the neighbour"

"I'm Zanna. Nice to meet you James. Look I need to unpack but you're welcome to play with Molly if you want. Her toys are in that box over there." The bracelets on her arm jangled as she gestured to a box in the corner.

I smiled gratefully and she left the room.

Half an hour later Molly was exhausted from all the running around. Zanna came down the stairs wearing black skinny jeans and a white tank top. Her hair was half braided over one shoulder.

"Oh hey Zan," She raised her eyebrows at the nickname but did not comment "I forgot to tell you, mum wants you to come over for dinner –unless you're busy?"

I gave her my best please-don't-leave-me-with-them-look and she shook her head mockingly. "I'm not busy, saves me a night of packet noodles anyway."

As we walked into my house I saw Sirius sitting at the table. I immediately went over, it wasn't unlike him just to pop up randomly.

Sirius stood up and walked over to where Zanna was standing. He raised an eyebrow at me, but I just shook my head. Zanna narrowed her eyes at our little exchange but thankfully said nothing.

Sirius extended a hand and she took it.

"Hi, I'm Sirius. James, I see your taste in women has certainly improved since the last time I saw you."

I couldn't help but laugh. Trust Sirius's first thought to be that I'd somehow acquired a girlfriend.

"Zanna," She replied. "And I'm curious, what is his taste in girls? I mean it can't possibly be that bad?"

Now it was Sirius turn to snort. I groaned into my hands as he started listing all the girls I'd dated one by one.

"First year, red head. Pretty but more than just a little strange. Second year, he crushed on this blond, who was 3 years his senior, and third year the Potter Curse takes affect again, red head, green eyes."

I groaned again, I hadn't exactly dated them, more like a schoolboy crush. Sirius smirked.

"Sorry mate, it's not my fault that your taste in women is so low."

"Like yours is any better?" I retorted. Sirius was a well know player, he went for attractive, a good snogger and not much more.

He dismissed my accusations with a smirk and a wave of his hands.

"James, my dear, the eternal difference between your girls and mine is that mine are a) attractive and b) Very good snoggers."

Zanna bit her lip to keep from laughing.

"So are you saying that all the girls James has dated are ugly and suck at snogging?" she asked with raised eyebrows.

"In my defence-" I started before once again my mother interrupted.

"James, introduce us please" She said, breaking up the mock argument.

"Zanna, this is my mother Amelia Potter, and my father Adam Charlus Potter, mum, dad this is our new neighbour Zanna."

Zanna smiled

"It's very nice to meet you Mr and Mrs Potter."

"Oh dearie please, that makes us feel old. It's just plain old Adam and Amelia." She replied. "Where are your parents? It's a shame they couldn't make it tonight."

My mother asked, even though she looked as if she already knew the answer.

"My father's at work." Zanna said her smile slightly strained.

"And what of your mother?" Mum asked, still digging for answers.

Zanna tensed a little, it was clearly a sore subject.

"My mother's dead."  
**  
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	2. Chapter 2

**A/N Disclaimer: I own Zanna, the plot, all of James's Girlfriends (minus Lily, who was implied) described in CH1 and his parents. Everything else belongs to J.K. Rowling**

**Hogwarts chapters very soon! Stick with it, I know these earlier chapters aren't brilliant but it does get better.**

**Thanks for the reviews!**

Biggestpotterhead

Purple-Tacos-R-Da-Bomb

Refresher of last chapter:

* * *

"_My father is out; I'm not sure when he'll be home. His job keeps him pretty tied up" Zanna said, the only trace of discomfort was the fist she made behind her back; otherwise her voice betrayed no trace of annoyance._

"_And what of your mother?" mum asked, still digging for answers._

_Zanna inhaled a short sharp breath._

"_My mother's dead"_

* * *

Zanna POV:

Amelia surprisingly did not look as shocked as I expected, although I can't say the same for James. He looked absolutely horrified.

"Oh I am so sorry! How did it happen?" Amelia asked her voice full of concern.

"I was almost 11 years old when she died of an apparent heart attack. The doctors had no explanation. It was very sudden and completely unexpected." I hoped I appeared calm; I hated talking about my mother especially when it was all lies.

Her name was Rosalie, she was 36 and beautiful. My paternal uncle always used to tell me that I looked like her. In fact, he used to say that I was the spitting image of her. She was beautiful with dark hair like mine except she had silvery grey eyes whereas mine are blue like my fathers.

I knew she hadn't died of a heart attack, that's just what I always told people. The same way I told people my father –Daniel- was a lawyer. If truth be told I didn't know what he was. He disappeared along with my uncle Ian when I was eight. Nobody knows what happened that day. I don't remember much. I think I blocked most of the memory out for self preservation reasons.

_I am eight years old, sitting in the kitchen watching my mother cook dinner. She has on a pretty dress. All blues and greens. We are laughing over an incident that happened at school today. But now I don't remember it._

_Suddenly there is a commotion in the front garden. There is yelling and bright colours flashing. I cry out to my mother who runs over to me. She picks me up and we go into my bedroom. She puts me down on my bed and sings me a song. Her voice is beautiful. It sounds like those pretty birds that you hear when you wake up. Her dark hair is tied up in a loose braid. My uncle is over visiting from Italy where he works as a special type of police man called an Auror. He always has this wooden stick on him all the time. He calls it a wand. My father has one too._

_I close my eyes and try to block out the sound. I don't know why I can't hear the neighbours rushing to help, it's like they can't see or hear what is going on. Suddenly the voices stop yelling. I recognise one of the voices belonging to my father the other belonging to my uncle._

_Then I fell asleep._

_The next time I wake up, my mother is crying. My father is gone. So is my Uncle._

"So Zanna, where are you going to school?" Adam asked, breaking me out of my reverie.

This question was starting to get on my nerves. So I just said the same thing I told the mover guy. That it was a boarding school in Scotland, and that this would be my first year there and I would be entering as a fifth year.

We talked for a while longer until I excused myself to go home.

I walked through my front door and just curled up in bed pulling the blankets around me.

I picked up a photo from when I was five. It was of me, my mother and my father in our old house- Hale Manor.

After my mother died I had nobody. I was an orphan. After she died, I lived or rather was held prisoner with a guy called Isaac. I didn't have a choice. It's pretty easy to control wandless eleven year olds who can't defend themselves against magic. Somehow, my paternal Grandfather had found put where I was and I was saved. I'd lived with him ever since, and I used to practice magic with his wand.

It was a few weeks later when it happend.

My phone rang. Looking at the caller ID I gasped. It was Isaac. I hadn't heard from him in years, either he hadn't cared about me or else my Grandfather had done a good job of keeping him away.

I didn't know who Isaac was exactly; all I knew is that I was scared of him.

I knew he practiced the Dark Arts, I'd seen proof from when I lived with him. I also knew for a fact that he had been there when my mum was killed. He used to brag about it on days when I wa sbeing particularly difficult. I remember him saying how he used the Cruciatus Curse on my mother because he was asking about my missing Uncle and she wouldn't say anything before he finally killed her. Sometimes, if my nightmares are really bad, I can still hear her screaming.

Rebelliously, I ignored the phone. I debated about calling my Grandfather. The wards would keep Isaac out, but there was no way I was being a prisioner in my own house.

He rang again, and again, and again. I ignored all of his calls.

After the 4th ignored call, he decided to quit and leave a very chilling voice mail. You know horror-movie style? It was 'I know where you live' crossed with 'I'm coming for you'. It took 'chilling' to a whole new level.

'_Did you honestly think you could hide from me? You forget how well I know you Zanna. Now pick. Up. The. Phone.'_

I picked up the phone.

**JAMES POV**

We were in Diagon Alley buying last minute supplies and getting Diana, my little sister, her was her first year at Hogwarts. Unlike the rest of our family she was a red-head, and a feisty one at that. Her hazel eyes shone with excitement.

We walked into Olivandor's; Diana was literally jumping up and down with excitement.

"Hmm the Potter family; I wondered when I would see you again."

Mr. Olivander smiled at us from behind the counter.

"Young master James; Dragon Heartstring 14in, pliable and made of Mahogany was it not? But I see a new face. First year are you my dear?"

Diana's reply was undoubtedly the loudest I'd ever heard her speak.

"Yes! I'm Diana. And I'm going to be a better witch than James!"

I smiled.

While Diana was testing out wands, I was vaguely looking out the window, not particularly interested; until something caught my eye.

It was a girl who looked oddly familiar. She had long dark hair and rich dark blue eyes. She didn't look happy. _She's a witch? No, not possible, _I thought. When she spoke I knew it was her.

She was walking with a man –her father? And he had a tight grip on her arm, as if she were going to run away. She struggled out of his grip but made no attempt to escape.

"Let go of me Isaac! You don't own me and you can't control me. Wait till Grandfather hears about this!" She spat at him, rather violently.

He laughed, "Don't make me Imperio you my dear. What you think of me does not matter. Just walk. And if you pull another stunt like that again you will be punished."

She scowled and turned her face away from me. It was then that I saw a large red mark on the side of her face. He had obviously slapped her.

Diana and the rest of the family were going to be busy for a while, so I excused myself to go look around.

On a sudden impulse I threw on my invisibility cloak and followed her. I didn't know where they were going, but I guess I kind of hoped to catch her alone so that we could talk. I'd only known her a few weeks, but she was a friend and I didn't believe she would be into anything dark or you-know-who related.

She was clearly terrified of the man-Isaac-she showed it by standing as far away from him as he would allow. It was clear who was in charge.

"Wait here," He said, roughly dragging and handcuffing her to a post. Nobody gave them a second glance. _How did people not realise that this was practically kidnapping?_ _Well, I suppose it is Knockturn Alley..._

I breathed a sigh of relief that she didn't have to enter the Alley. I used this as an opportunity to speak to her.

Quietly I took the cloak off, but in doing so I accidentally knocked over a pot outside one of the shops.

Her head turned sharply to follow the noise. Her eyes widened as they met mine. She quickly glanced towards Knockturn Alley to see if Isaac was there. She turned back to her wrist, magically bound to the post and tried to pull herself free unsuccessfully.

I pointed my wand at the bound and muttered "Alohomora," to unlock it.

She gasped at me as the cuffs clattered to the floor, rubbing her wrist which was red and raw.

"You're a wizard?" she stared at me in disbelief.

"You're a witch?" I countered raising my eyebrow.

She said nothing, she just looked at me. She opened her mouth to say something when I interrupted.

"Do you want to get away from him or not? I mean I can rebound you if you like." I said.

She glared at me. Evidently self preservation won out over pride. She came with me.

On the way back we talked. She mentioned how her her mother was a Muggle, as her but her father came from a line of purebloods. She didn't talk about herself much, it obviously wasn't something she was comfortable telling me. But there was something's I just had to know.

"Did your mother really die of a heart attack? And is that man your father?" I asked.

She looked at me bitterly and said "What do you think?"

I must have looked shocked at her sudden outburst because her face softened and she said.

"Sorry. I'm just a little on edge today. To properly answer your first question she was killed by a wizard. To answer your second question: no, Isaac isn't my father."

Her eyes told me that she wasn't telling the whole truth. But I decided to drop it and change the subject.

"Where's your wand?"

"I don't have one. I only ever practiced with my grandfathers spare..."

I laughed. She pouted at my reaction. Not a smart move.

"Ok, first things first we're going to meet my mother. She'll know what to do. Oh and are you going to Hogwarts?"

She nodded.

We walked to Olivander's where Diana had finally found a wand.

It was 12 inches with a unicorn core and made of Pear wood.

"Interesting. You have a bright future ahead of you Miss Potter. I wish you all the best," Olivander said smiling. "Pear wands prefer the warm hearted, generous and the wise. Clearly you and your brother are very different people. Although I still do not understand how you ended up with mahogany Mr Potter."

I grinned. Then I remembered Zanna-she had obviously been unsure of what to do, so she did nothing. I turned around thinking that maybe she'd had second thoughts. But she was standing right there. She seemed unsure of herself, so different from when I first met her. Believe it or not I was known to be a very protective person of my family and friends.

I pulled my mother over to the side while Diana and Dad went to buy her an owl. I explained everything –how Zanna was a witch, the man Isaac obviously wanted her for something and how she had neither wand nor formal training.

She immediately turned into business mode, quizzing Zanna on how much she knew, what she had and all that.

"Firsts things first, you need a wand. Mr Olivander if you please." Her eyes glazed over a little as she compiled a checklist of things in her mind.

Zanna tried out many wands but eventually settled on Cedar wood, phoenix core at 12 ½ in with rigid flexibility.

"Cedar wand paired with a Phoenix feather. Very curious indeed. As my father once said 'you will never fool the cedar carrier'. They prefer strength of character and unusual loyalty. They find their perfect home where there is perspicacity and perception. My father also used to say that he would never want to cross the carrier of a cedar wand, especially if harm is done to their loved ones. You will make a very talented witch someday."

And then he disappeared behind the counter, but not before glancing at Zanna once more.

We then went on to complete the rest of the checklist, including robes, books, pets and equipments.

Suddenly Zanna frowned. "What am I going to do with Molly?" she asked.

I saw the look of puzzlement on mothers face –"Her dog," I said

"Oh, don't worry. Well look after her for you my dear."

We ran into Diana at the owlery and made quick introductions. Diana had settled on a reddish coloured owl –the Madagascar Red owl or something.

Zanna decided on a cat. It was sleek and black but also incredibly cute, in a scary kind of way. It was odd as it had these piercing violet eyes. For some reason it reminded me of Zanna. I think she called the breed an American Bombay or something? It snuggled itself onto Zanna's shoulders purred and didn't stop.

It turned out that Zanna had quite a large fund both in wizard money and Muggle money. Eventually we had everything that we needed.

I was looking forward to being a fifth year student.


	3. July 2013, edited

"So we just, run through the wall?" I asked, skeptical.

I didn't know much about Hogwarts. My father never talked about it. James had told me a bit and Diana seemed really excited to be going. Diana and I, despite the age difference, had become close friends in the last few days.

James glared at me, "Honestly, how can you ask such a stupid question?"

I rolled my eyes. I was used to his blunt arrogance by now.

I watched him go first; Ashes-my cat-was curled up on my shoulders. We had a connection. When I first saw her in the shop I knew that she was for me. According to the owner, she's refused every witch and wizard that ever wanted her.

"She must have been waiting for you," the owner had joked, laughing.

He had tried to put her in a carrier, but she just hissed and jumped onto my shoulders purring like the kitten she really was.

"Mum, if I get sorted into Slytherin will you still love me?" I chuckled at the innocence of Di's question. She was much too nice to be a Slytherin. Then again you never know. If I was to bet, I reckon she'd be Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff.

Suddenly it was my turn. Mrs Potter –sorry Dorea-gave me a reassuring nod. So I ran, waiting for the impact that I knew would never come.

I was through. I opened my eyes and saw a platform full of families. One mother was crying hysterically as she said good bye to her son. I felt a pang of jealousy, wishing I had that. In a way I did, Mr and Mrs Potter were nice, and treated me like a daughter. But they weren't my parents and never would be.

I said my goodbyes to the Potters and followed Diana onto the train. A girl with startling green eyes and long auburn hair accidentally ran into me.

"Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry," she said, a little breathless, "Why haven't I seen you around before-you're not a first year?"

I shook my head and managed a smile.

"My names Zanna, I'm actually going into 5th year, but this is my first year at Hogwarts."

She grinned, "Don't worry, I'll help you out with whatever you need. I'm Lily by the way. Also a 5th year and a prefect."

And that was the start of a very long friendship.

As we walked down to her compartment, jeering voices called out form some passing by Slytherin's.

"Ohhhh, she's a newbie. This should make some fun entertainment don't you think Snape?" he was tall, with icy blue eyes and long dark hair. He wore the silver and green of Slytherin.

The guy, Snape, just nodded and smirked at me. He referred to the other guy as 'Rosier'.

"So," he said pacing around me like a cat. Lily had gone up ahead, obviously not realizing that I wasn't following. "What are you? You don't look like a pure blood, and even if you were consorting with Mudbloods is a crime."

I said darkly, "Blood status means nothing. I'd rather be a Muggle Born then a pureblood that rules by fear and can't even stand on his own two feet without his posse of followers trying to match his every step. You're pathetic."

He hissed at me. His face was contorted into a scowl full of hatred. I'd just humiliated him in front of all his friends, and I wasn't proud of it.

"And for the record, I'm a half blood."

With that I smiled and walked away, not letting anybody see the shame bubbling up inside of me. I found Lily walking back towards me looking worried. She'd obviously heard everything.

Cheers rose up from neighboring non-Slytherins.

"Zanna, are you ok?" she asked, I nodded. We went back to her compartment.

There was a girl sitting there. She had blond hair with warm brown eyes. She smiled when she saw Lily.

"Grace. This is Zanna. Zanna meet Grace. My best friend."

"Hi, nice to meet you Zanna."

I smiled.

* * *

_Breathe Zanna, just breathe_, I told myself. I was waiting in line with all the others first years to get sorted.

Patience was never my strong point, and I was just about to tear my hair out when I heard my name.

'Hale, Susannah."

I walked up slowly and put on the hat.

The hat chuckled.

"You are incredibly loyal, judgmental and rash at times, but brave, and compassionate. You'd make a fine Hufflepuf."

I thought about it. Hufflepuff didn't seem bad, but then I thought of James and Sirius and Lily and Grace and how they were all Gryffindors.

"Very well. If it is not Hufflepuff you seek, then it must be Gryffindor. Your loyalty and honour are strong combined with the bravery you posses. So like your father, he was a Gryffindor."

The hat knew my father? I was shocked. I guess I just hadn't thought about my father being young. I just always saw him as my father. I never imagined him going to school. I wanted to make him proud, wherever he was.

"I have made my decision. GRYFFINDOR." The Gryffindors cheered.

I saw Lily make a space for me and so I sat with her.

I was pleased.

I still couldn't get over my the fact that my father went to this school, and he was a Gryffindor.

Later in the dorms, I sat on my bed holding a photo I found from back when I was three.

My mother was there, she looked like an older version on me, just far more beautiful. I had my father's eyes though. Mum was holding me, I held a lock of her dark hair in my hands, my father had his arm around her shoulders. We were all smiling. A tear came to my eye as I remembered happier days, before my father had left. Behind us in the distance were large snow covered mountains, it was clearly winter. The sun was setting so the picture had an eerie red glow to it. I brushed the tear away, refusing to show weakness.

I don't know how long it was until I fell asleep, all I know is that I woke to the sound of Grace's shrill voice yelling in my year telling me to wake up.

"Zanna, wake up. It's 7.30 breakfast is in ten ok? After that we have our first transfiguration lesson..." I slowly started to zone out as she continued to gush about that many pros and cons of transfiguration with professor McGonagall.

Looking in the mirror I was a mess. I had a bad case of bed hair. My usually straight hair was messed up and I was bleary eyed. I was defiantly not a morning person. I tied my hair back in a loose pony tail. Yawning, I made my way down to breakfast seeing as Lily and Grace couldn't wait. I just hoped I remembered the way.

I was in the common room when I ran into James and Sirius getting ready to leave.

"Shouldn't you guys be gone by now?" I said, eyebrows raised.

"I could ask you the same question, Hale." James countered looking amused.

"Oh were playing the last name game now are we, Potter? And for the record, I slept in." And with that I stalked out of the room, trying to ignore the smirk plastered on his face as I left the room.

"Zanna where have you been? I was worried you got lost or something," Lily said looking worried and slightly guilty for leaving me.

"Hmm? No I'm fine, I just ran into James Potter that's all." I said trying hard not to laugh at the innocent wide eyed look on Grace's face when I said 'James Potter'. She was clearly a fan. Lily huffed and turned away cheeks flushing slightly.

"Oooh Lily, not falling for him are you? Remember he's an 'arrogant toe-rag'- your words not mine." I grinned at Lily's shocked faced.

"No! How could you think that?" she gasped.

Now I was really laughing, her cheeks were so red. It was made worse by the typically loud entrance of 'the Marauders'. They were pathetic naming themselves like they were superheroes or something. I didn't realize how it was possible, but Lily's cheeks flushed an even deeper shade of red than before. Grace giggled. I shook my head, knowing that no good was going to come out of this.

"Hmmm Gracie, what's the bet that by the end of this week James will have asked Lily out?" I smirked. Graces eyes widened. Sometimes I wondered what was going on in her head.

* * *

**A/N** Okay, I reworked this chapter, made some large changed including taking out a scene from Sirius POV and what the Hat says about anna because it matches more with her personality now.

Please review! I know these earlier chapters aren't masterpieces, but the later ones are much better and Zanna is my absolute baby and it would mean so much to see your feedback.

xx Liza


	4. June 2013, edited

**ZPOV**

I wandered down to the Great Hall for lunch. Luckily I found it without getting lost. In my opinion, it was quite the achievement for my second week here. It was a Friday and we all had free periods for the rest of the day.

Grace's long blond hair had been neatly braided down the side and tied with a Gryffindor ribbon. Lily had left her flaming auburn locks out. Their uniforms were pristine as usual.

I sat down at the table. _I will never get used to this much food, _I thought_. _I was contemplating life at Hogwarts when a certain loud, arrogant voice came from behind me.

"So Evans, you watching Quidditch trials this weekend?" the voice belonged to none other than James Potter, my next door neighbour. I rolled my eyes and winked at Grace.

Suddenly Sirius came to sit beside me, and a few first years made way for Lupin so he could sit next to Grace.

"Oi, Hale, you do know what Quidditch is don't you?" Typical. I rolled my eyes at Sirius and snorted.

"Attractive," he muttered.

"Oooh is it that game, where you like throw a ball –blogders? Badgers? -at people's heads and like fly around and stuff and score hoops? Is that what they're called?" I said sarcastically.

Remus spluttered with laughter. James gave me the death glare, Sirius just looked offended.

"Oh very funny, "James scowled.

"Bludgers. The balls are called bludgers" Sirius cried in outrage. I started laughing.

"What!" they said together. For the second (or third?) time that day I rolled my eyes.

"Black-just because I've never been to Hogwarts doesn't make me clueless about anything wizard like. I grew up watching the Holyhead Harpies play Puddlemere United. My first birthday present was a broom and a snitch. Try to remember that I am a half blood, not a Muggleborn please."

Sirius looked dumfounded. James recovered first

"A snitch? Can you play seeker?" he looked hopeful. "Because last year's seeker just graduated and I, being captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team-" he started smugly showing off his badge "-need to hold tryouts. You should come. Test your abilities. Let's see if you can make the cut," he winked at me. Once again I rolled my eyes. I seemed to be making a habit out of that.

"That's all well and good Potter, but I haven't been on a broom in a while," I said.

James shrugged. "Look-I've got detention this week but Padfoot can practise with you. Please-we haven't had a good seeker in years. Just try out, it's all I'm asking." He looked so hopeful that I just couldn't say no.

Sirius on the other hand, spat the pumpkin juice he was drinking out his nose. We all looked at him curiously.

"Attractive," I said, referring to his earlier comment. He, naturally, glared at me.

"Do I get a say in this?" he asked clearly annoyed.

"Ouch Black, that hurt. Aren't I worth wasting your free time on? Even if it's the difference between winning or losing against Slytherin?" I got him there.

"Fine. Be down at the pitch at 6 tomorrow. Bring your broom. Don't be late."

With that he stalked off. James watched after him, eyebrows raised he shook his head and muttered something to Lupin about him 'not usually being one to turn down time with a pretty girl'.

It gave me a chance to do something about the James/Lily situation anyway.

"Potter," he turned around at the sound of Lily's voice "How the hell have you got detention already? We've barely been here for two weeks!" he grinned and winked before carrying on.

"Ask Hale" he shouted back across his shoulder.

She looked at me expectantly. I racked my brains for the memory. Then it hit me

"Oh right. Huh that was funny." I smiled at the memory.

She crossed her arms and started tapping her foot. She was in 'angry-Lily-mode'. '_Her_ _temper_ _must have something to do with the red hair,' _I thought.

"Yeah, well um. It was in Herbology with Slytherin and Potter bewitched a plant to grow up and spell 'Zabini sucks'. Naturally the majority of the class found it funny, unfortunately the teacher didn't find it quite as funny as the rest of us did and when Malfoy retaliated with a jinx they both got detention. It really was hilarious. He even coloured the vine into Slytherin colours." My grin faded as I saw lily's furious glare.

"Arrogant toe-rag," she muttered.

I decided to head back to the dorms before she could kill me.

On the way I began thinking about my plan. James needed to deflate his head, but Lily needed to see the real James hidden underneath that smirk of his. To do this, I decided that locking them in a room for a few hours might either make things better or worse. It was a 50-50 gamble that would probably end in bloodshed and some much needed entertainment. I smiled at the thought.

On the way I saw a crowd of students had gathered in a hallway, it sounded like a fight. Curious I decided to go investigate.

I pushed my way to the front to see James and that greasy haired Snape kid from the train facing each other off. James had Sirius flanking him, Snape was alone. I looked around to see that Lupin had stepped back. I went and stood by him.

"What's going on?" I hissed quietly not taking my eyes off of them.

Lupin jumped, startled but breathed a sigh of relief when he saw it was me.

"Snape."

I looked at him questionably.

"I can see that it's Snape but what about him. They really seem to hate each other." I asked, fishing for answers.

He sighed again and tugged at his robes nervously.

"Snape and James have hated each other since the day they first met in our first year. James may be an arrogant git but he doesn't meddle in the Darks Arts. Snape on the other hand does. Plus he's a Slytherin. He's the same one who, with Lucius Malfoy, insulted you on the train. He and his friends have a dark reputation. Snape- or snivellous as James and Sirius call him- has always been a good friend of Lily's and James can't understand that. They hate each other's guts and this fight over Lily is part of that. Although part of it is jealousy, James is everything Snape ever wanted to be: Handsome, popular, good family, wealthy. Speaking of Lily here she comes."

James had hexed Snape so he hung upside down by his ankle. Suddenly Snape drew his wand, muttered the counter curse and started shooting more hexes at James and Sirius.

"Two against one though? I'm all for a good fight, as long as it's fair. Two against one is hardly fair," I said, slightly worried.

Lupin laughed "Please. Snape knew more curses in his first year at Hogwarts than most 7th years put together. It's fair."

"Potter! What are you doing?" Lily's horrified voice came out of the crowed. Something told me that I might have to hold off on my plan to get them together for a while.

She stood in the middle of them facing towards James. James just looked at her, furious.

Snape laughed harshly. "Oh look potter, now your filthy little mudblood girlfriend has to protect you." No sooner was the word out of his mouth when there were gasps of shock all around. Lily had tears in her eyes.

"You take that back!" James roared.

Lily just looked shocked, and so hurt I just wanted to run to her and look after her the way she looked after me in my first few days. Remus grabbed my arm and said, "Don't"

"No, Potter, you're just as bad as he is. You're an arrogant toe-rag and a bully. you should know better" Lily spat.

James looked hurt. "I would never ever call you _that. _You know me, Lils, I never insult people because of their blood status," He whispered, horrified.

Lily was beyond reason now.

"Sev, how could you?"

"Lily, I am so sorry, please forgive me. Please!" Snape was crying, begging now on his knees. His little death eater buddies had now come up behind him.

"No Sev. Our friendship is over, I can't stand your fascination with the dark arts, it's wrong. i asked you last Christmas to stop and you didn't. Muggles and Muggle borns are being killed because of your 'dark lord'. And you've crossed the line one too many times. There's no turning back now," she spat at him. Half sobbing half shouting. He looked absolutely crushed. But I felt no pity for any supporter of _Him_.

She turned around and ran in the general direction of the dorm. Sirius turned around to watch her go. His eyes met mine for a fleeting second before turning back to James who stood there radiating anger. I shook off Lupin's restraining hand and followed her. What Snape did was unspeakable, but Lily was right. The constant fights with him were wrong. It was bullying-something I could never stand.

I ran after Lily and found her crying in the dorm. I didn't say anything I just sat on my bed and waited for her to start talking.

She got up and walked over to my bed, which had the largest window. She curled up against it and spoke quietly.

"When I found out I was a witch for the first time, being Muggle-born it was scary; Exciting but scary. My parents were thrilled, but Tuney-Petunia, my sister-she was jealous. She called me a freak and she hated me. Sev – that's his first name you know, Severus Snape- he lived down the road from me. He was there for me, and he taught me that I wasn't a freak and that magic was a good thing. He showed me how to control it. I already had pretty good control for a 7 year old kid. I used to make petals float up and down. Lily petals." She laughed and wiped the tears from her eyes.

"He became my best friend and I his. I had nobody else to turn to. My sister hated me, my parents were supportive but they didn't know the first thing about magic. I always stood up to him when Potter bullied him although looking back I realise that it wasn't always Potter who started the fights although most of the time it was. He or Sirius would call him 'snivellous' and then Sev would get out his wand. They'd disarm him before he could fire any hexes. They tormented him, humiliated him in front of everybody. I usually stepped in to break it up, always defending my best friend. Potter could never understand what I saw in him. I guess it's just one of my flaws. I always try to see the best in people. Over the years we remained friends, but he budied up with his Slytherin friends. He got more and more involved in the dark arts and he wouldn't stop. It scared me. I guess it just too me too long to realise that we were destined to go down different roads. I suppose I knew it would happen eventually but that doesn't make it hurt any less. One thing I never expected was that he would call me that."

She half smiled, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to pour down her face like an unstoppable waterfall. She turned around and looked me in the eye. I put my arms around her as she sobbed for while letting out all the pent up hurt and anger bottled up inside of her.

"Thank you for listening. You're a good friend Zanna."

I looked at her. "Any time Lily. Ok, look I'll just let people know to give you some space now okay? You should sleep. It'll help. Trust me I speak from experience. Sleep is the best getaway. I'll wake you up for dinner. You can use my teddy if you want it's one of the few things of my mother's I have left. I find it helps to have something to hold. I would lend you my cat but I can't seem to find her."

I tossed her the bear and she laughed and caught it. "Thank you Zanna," she whispered.

She smiled gratefully and went back to her own bed. I quietly shut the door and turned out the lights and snuck downstairs to face a very worried James Potter in the common room.

"Zanna-how is she? Can you tell her I'm sorry?" He said. It was clear he was worried about her.

I took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. "Lily's fine; well as fine as anybody in her position can be. She just lost her best friend tonight Potter. She's upstairs sleeping. I told her I'd wake her up for dinner, but something tells me she really won't to see you, so just give her some space okay?"

James sighed and ran his fingers through his messy jet black hair worriedly.

"Look, fine I'll stay away. Just please please please tell her I'm sorry." He was practically begging.

"James, I think –"I hesitated. I closed my eyes briefly and shook my head; I cannot believe I was doing this. "Look, fine I'll tell her you're sorry but don't expect a response. She'll probably kill me just for mentioning your name." I smiled a bit. "Anyway, where's your better half? Oh and if you're going to go get revenge on Snape, please tell me so I can punch him on behalf of Lily."

James laughed. He looked around "Good question- Where is Sirius? I haven't seen him since earlier." He shrugged. "He's probably in the kitchens. Or down on the pitch. Actually he might be in the Library with Remus."

I pretended to look shocked. "Sirius knows that the library actually exists? And he knows its location? I never saw that coming."

Once again James laughed.

"Nah, he just followed Remus. Probably to copy his homework" I tilted my head in agreement. "Now that sounds more like Sirius." I laughed.

"Oh Zanna, speaking of homework did we have any for Herbology? I got kicked out halfway through the lesson."

My face twisted in thought. _Did we or did we not have Herbology homework_...that was the question.

"Ummm, yes, something about a foot long essay on mandrakes or something? Remind me to ask Grace next time I see her. I don't know if you've realised but I rarely pay attention in Herbology; Useless subjects really if you ask me, dead boring too. Anyways I've got to go Slughorn's giving me catch up lessons in potions...yay." I scowled at the thought.

"Catch up lessons?" he queried

"Yeah, I've kind of missed out on a lot of stuff from previous years. Oh by the way, what House did your sister Diana get sorted into? I actually wasn't paying any attention to the sorting."

He grinned proudly. "Ravenclaw, smart kid huh. Good luck in potions." He sniggered at my misfortune.

* * *

A few days later was DADA, a subject we were all in. The teacher, Professor Julius Root, had paired us off randomly. I was with Sirius, Remus was with Grace and lily had the unfortunate luck to get James.

I leaned over to whisper in Sirius ear. "How long do you reckon they'll go before World War Three breaks out?"

He smirked. "Oh you just wait, Zanna, our daily dose of entertainment is just beginning." We were of course referring to James and Lily.

"Ms Hale, Mr Black is there something you would like to share with the rest of the class?" The professor had caught us talking.

Sirius lied smoothly and sweetly, putting on his best 'innocent' face.

"We were just saying how excited we were to be doing Patronus's today. We were speculating the shape they would take".

The class sniggered and the Professors face went bright red with annoyance. He glared at us but said nothing. Sirius high fived me under the table.

"To do a patronus, you need to think of a happy memory..." he droned on for about the next 10 minutes. I saw Sirius lazily recline in the chair, his dark hair falling elegantly into his handsome yet aristocratic face. I zone out, trying to think of a happy memory. None came to mind.

When it was time to practise we both stood up and found a secluded corner of the room.

"Ladies first," he smirked. I rolled my eyes.

I ran my fingers through my long loose hair. I mentally reminded myself to cut it as it was nearly down to my mid forearm. After about five minutes of doing nothing, Sirius finally noticed.

"What's wrong? Go on cast the spell. Just think of something happy." He questioned. I snorted. Happy wasn't a word typically used to describe my childhood, and I told him that.

"Oh come on, there must be something. A family Christmas. Or your birthday-the first time you rode a broom." I looked at him. He actually remembered me telling him that? I closed my eyes and remembered

_It was August 24th, my first birthday. I toddled around to the big mat in the play room where mum and dad were sitting. There was another boy there too, maybe five years older than me-my brother. He handed me my first present. I sat in mother's lap and using my chubby little fingers tried, unsuccessfully to gently unwrap the silvery blue paper the covered the box. Eventually, I gave up and handed it to mum to open. It was a necklace. I was too young to understand its significance at the time. It was a pretty enchanted locket, with pictures of me and the rest of the family. It expanded as I got older, documenting my life. But that wasn't what I was interested in. I crawled over to the long thing box that sat in the centre; daddy opened it and pulled out a broom. The boy-Aleksander-helped me on it I remember my family laughing. It only went a few meters off of the ground, but as father let the snitch go (it was a baby snitch, quite slow) I remember zooming about entertaining everybody with my squeals and near misses. Those where happier times, when my mother's face was young and filled with laugh lines not a trace of worry etched on her pretty forehead. I remember my father chuckling and roaring with laughter swearing he'll make a seeker out of me one day._

Keeping my eyes closed, trapping the feeling of warmth that spread through me as I remembered my family I said quietly "Expecto Patronum".

I heard Sirius gasp in awe and I knew I had done it. I opened my eyes to see my patronus was a vixen – a female fox. _Suits me_ I thought. _Fierce, loyal, quick but smart like me_.

"Well, congratulations, Zanna. I didn't think you had it in you." He smiled teasingly. "What were you thinking of anyway?"

I was silent for a while before I answered him. When I did I realised that he had cast his Patronus – a large dog. I smiled as I watched various patronuses including Lily's doe and Grace's horse.

I could feel him watching me, waiting for an answer. I turned and looked him in his dark blue-grey eyes, they almost seemed fathomless. It was easy to get lost in them.

"I was thinking of my birthday, when my family was together. Before everything went wrong," I said quietly, absentmindedly fingering my locket that I had never taken off since that day.

I knew Sirius understood me better than anybody. It's not like we had similar backgrounds, we just both knew what it felt like to be alone.

"What's that necklace that you always wear? I've seen you play with it, especially when you're nervous but I've never seen you not wear it." He had come closer now; I leaned against the wall while he pulled his chair up.

"What this? It was given to me by my mother. My father enchanted it so it's kind of like a small photo album, it never gets full." I smiled.

"What were you thinking of?" I asked grinning.

He laughed "The day my I got sorted into gryffindor and met James. I got a howler the next day. it was bloody hilarious." I don't know where the time went, but suddenly the lesson was over. I looked up to see Sirius staring at James and Lily's patronuses. I gasped; his was a stag the male counterpart of her doe. It rarely happened that witches and wizards got matching Patronuses. This just confirmed my theory that they belonged together.

"You know, Sirius, we really need to get them together," I mused softly.

He looked at me with his striking blue-grey eyes. There was a casual elegance about his face that I hadn't noticed before. Then he chuckled and slid back down in his chair, before muttering;

"That'll be the day, when Lily Evans finally gets off her high horse and says yes to James Potter".

"I'll see you on the pitch at 6 yeah?" he said turning back around to face me as he exited the classroom. I gave a slight nod of my head and continued to wait for Lily and Grace.

**Sirius POV:**

It was 5.57pm. I was pacing up and down the pitch waiting for Zanna to get here. I was starting to get annoyed, she was cutting it fine. Suddenly I heard a voice call out.

"Hey Padfoot, don't get your tail in a knot, she'll be here soon," James said grinning. I glared at the mention of 'tail' I knew he was referring to my Animagi form –a dog.

"Don't you have detention?" I asked him, knowing full well what the answer was. James would do anything to watch his new protégée play.

"Nah, I talked to McGonagall. She said that my detention would be coaching a first year in DADA for the rest of the term during my free periods. So that means I'm free now. Oh look here she is! Finally!"

James bounded over to her; she rolled her eyes and didn't even bother asking about his detention. I laughed slicking my floppy hair back with my hand.

"Am I late? Because according to my watch it's barely even 6pm," she looked at me. I shook my head. I couldn't help noticing little things; I figured her father was a pureblood. We'd done pureblood families in history of Magic a couple of days ago and Boring Bins had prattled off the list including, Black's Malfoy's and Hale's being the oldest and most respected. Apparently though the Hale's had gone underground a few decades back moving to Bulgaria or something hence why they were unheard of.

She walked over, holding her broom breaking me out of my reverie.

"So _Coach _what are we doing first?" she said, mocking me as usual. I held my temper. Just. It wasn't like girls to get under my skin so much. Why was this one different?

I glared at James who, typically, laughed at my misfortune to get stuck with the one girl who wasn't head over heels for me, which I must say, was rather unusual.

"First, warm up. It's been a while since you flew so you're just going to do some laps. Not too high, not too fast." She rolled her eyes at me. Merlin she does that a lot.

"Yes Coach," was her sarcastic reply. I grinned. This girl had guts, and she wasn't afraid to show it.

"Oi Prongs, go make yourself useful for once instead of pissing me off. Go with her," they both looked at me questionably, but James, never one to turn down a chance to fly just shrugged it off.

She was a natural flier there was no doubting that. She perfomed well in almost every speed and agility (required seeker skills) that I threw at her. She certainly gave James a run for his money. She was rusty in the beginning but soon warmed up after a few hours of drills.

**Zanna POV**

It was Sunday, the night of James's tryouts. Apparently since the seventh years had graduated, there were several open positions. Seeker being one of them. The others included a chaser and a keeper.

James made everybody split into groups-possible seekers in one, chasers in the other and keepers in the last group. Within those three groups we had to split into groups of 5.

I had tied by hair up into a long pony tail and was just wearing my usual non-uniform clothes –leggings and T-shirt-comfortable, practical and stylish all in one.

We were made to do laps, which immediately eliminated several players –possibly 10 out of the 30 (give or take)here-as they couldn't fly to save their lives. Most likely they were there to oogle James and Sirius.

Next were the keeper and chaser tryouts; each keeper had to try and block the shots scored by the chasers. There were some pretty good and some absolutely terrible saves. I stood with James on the ground; watching and I could hear him groan.

He immediately kicked another 3 people out because they couldn't save more than 2/5 shots.

The chasers worked in pairs with Sirius while James watched to determine whether or not they could work in a team, whether or not they could actually throw the Quaffle and catch it without dropping it (eliminating 6 more people taking the total payers left down to 11). The next test for the chasers was adding in beaters and the bludger to work under pressure. Most were okay with this however another 4 freaked out when they saw the bludger, taking us down to 10.

James then told all non-eliminated keepers to sit on the left of the pitch (there was 2 left) and chasers on the right (3 left).

There were 5 people trying out for seeker position. Apparently most people were too scared of James to try out for this position; someone said it was because his seeker standards were so high. I didn't blame him. Nobody wanted to come second to Slytherin for a second year in a row.

We went through much of the same drills I did with Sirius. He would give us a distance, say 100m, and whoever got there and back in over say 1 minute were immediately gone. This took five down to 3. I was really nervous now –what if I mess up? There was 3 people left, the other two were both older and had more experience than me. It didn't do a lot for a girl's confidence. I saw Sirius giving me his usual arrogant smile and thumbs up. He mouthed, "Good luck".

I also saw Lily and Grace in the stands supporting me. Suddenly I felt a whole lot better.

James finally released the snitch. After about 6 minutes of being perfectly still, I located the snitch. Grinning I went into a steep nose-dive coming up at the last minute victorious. I had caught the snitch.

I tossed it up and down, playing with it the way James often did. I could see the appeal, it was really amusing. Eventually I came down and tossed the snitch to James. Lily and Grace hugged me, whispering congratulations. I had to wait until James put the list up tomorrow to be sure, but judging by the grin on Sirius's face, I was fairly sure I was in.

The next day I saw James in the common room putting up the list. He turned around as he saw me.

"Congratulations, Zanna, you've made the team!"

_If only you could see me now Daddy. You would be so proud of me._

**A/N**

19/6/13

I've edited this for grammar and a few other things, merlin knows how any of you liked it. I swear it gets better!


	5. Chapter 5 - March 2013, newly editied

"Gah Lily how on earth do you do this!" I cried. "I am so going to fail charms". Lily laughed as I gave an exasperated sigh.

"Oh it's alright for you Lily- this is your favourite subject!" I said, utterly frustrated.

"Calm down Zanna. I think you have a may have gotten the movement wrong. Here like this" she flicked her wrist and muttered '_silencio'-_ the charm we were supposed to be practising. Her 'unfortunate victim' was none other than the so called '_arrogant toe-rag_' James Potter.

He looked utterly ridiculous failing his arms about like a headless chicken opening and closing his mouth only to find out no sound came out, much to the amusement of his best friend Sirius Black. _All In all it was just another average Tuesday morning_ I thought to myself with a smile.

James was still spluttering with his eyes bulging in his ego-inflated head when his voice came back. He glared at Sirius and I in a failed attempt to shut us up (emphasis on _failed) _and smiled sweetly at Lily much to our disgust. We gagged behind their backs.

Lily screwed up her nose as James directed his attention to her. I couldn't help but laugh at the hopeful expression on his face.

"Potter," she said coolly, "If you even think about asking me out I will put a permanent silencing charm on you."

James opened his mouth. Mistake number one. Lily's glare intensified, If that was even possible.

"Now Evans, you're not still mad about Snivellous are you? Honestly he deserved that hex. And who said I was going to ask you out? For all you know I may have just wanted a conversation." He huffed.

Mistake number two, bringing up Snape. After the whole 'mudblood' incident she had been snappier than usual with James. It was after all partly his fault that Snape said it.

Sirius made eye contact with me and we both snorted at the possibility of James 'just wanting a conversation'. Remus and Grace sniggered behind us.

James immediately turned to glare at the lot of us but as he opened his mouth instead of words big soapy bubbles came out as he tried to speak. Once again we all failed to contain our laughter.

Professor Flitwik came over and started roaring with laughter when he saw what Lily had done to James. He raised an eyebrow and gave ten points to Gryffindor for creativity and we all knew he was secretly glad to hear the end of James's voice.

Lily eventually turned her attention away from James and back to Grace and I as we all desperately tried to master the 'avifors' charm next.

I glared at the small teacup that was in front of lily as she successfully charmed it into a flock of birds.

I flicked my wrist again muttering '_Avifors'_ the way Lily did it and after several failed attempt, to which Sirius got a good kick out of teasing me about (I responded like the mature student I was by sticking out my tongue) and to my delight, succeeded in turning my teacup into birds.

"Oi Evans" James called as we exited the classroom. "Come to Hogsmeade with me?"

Lily didn't even bother replying, so I did the honours for her as she stalked off to Transfiguration.

"James, really you need a life, or a girlfriend. Actually both." I frowned as James shook his head.

"My dear Zanna. One, are we on a first name basis again? And two, you just wait, she WILL say yes...just ...not right now." He looked almost thoughtful for a moment.

"Moony how many times this year has Prongs been rejected by Evans?" Sirius asked.

Remus pretended to count of on his fingers before replying. "Oh I don't know...maybe 57 or so times?" Peter sniggered as James's scowl deepened.

"You actually kept count. You guys are unbelievable. Remind me to come to you if I ever need blackmail material," I said in mock amazement.

Sirius chuckled and nudged Remus who was having a quiet conversation with Grace, and said, "I knew there was a reason why we're friends with this girl." Remus laughed and rolled his eyes.

James glared some more and sat down in my usual next to Lily leaving me to sit with Sirius.

"Is there trouble in paradise, Mr. Potter?" Professor McGonagall said slyly as she noted the change of seating.

James took this opportunity to be, well James.

"Yes Professor, Sirius and I decided that we were just too different you see," He paused for dramatic effect, "I decided that my heart belonged to somebody else and I decided to end Jirius once and for all. I mean it would be cruel to lead him on after all." He smiled sadly, sighing as he gestured with his hands. I saw Grace nudge Lily at this. The class sniggered

Sirius raised his hand to his heart feigning hurt.

"What! You never told me we broke up! I-I can't believe we're really over." He gave a dramatic cry and I patted his back reassuringly trying not to burst out laughing.

"It's alright Sirius, we all know you deserve better than James. He'll regret leaving you for that girl." Remus intervened, the corners of his mouth twitihcing as he mock consoled Sirius.

"Moony, how do you know it's a girl?" Peter piped up from the desk opposite Sirius's.

Sirius sniffed "Yeah, take that Prongs! I'm hotter than you! You just wait I'll have my revenge. You'll miss me in bed. This new girl had better watch out! Nobody dumps Sirius Black and gets away with it." He winked at James causing the class to erupt into uncontrollable hysterics.

I could've sworn the corners of McGonagall mouth twitched up in a smile before she put an end to their antics.

"Take out your textbooks and turn to page one hundred and sixty three. Today we shall be practising the vanishing spell 'Evanesco' to vanish the mouse that you each have on your desk. It is a difficult spell and I do not expect you to get it right straight away. Pair up and off you go." She announced.

I quickly moved over to where Lily was to save her another lesson of being with James, who likewise moved to sit with Sirius.

"Honestly I am going to murder Potter one day, mark my words I will. Embarrassing me in front of the whole class..." Lily grumbled.

"Lils, you realize that he never actually mentioned you by name right?" I asked smirking. She blushed even more.

I looked over to where Remus and Grace were patiently coaching Peter in the art of vanishing spells. He managed to vanish a claw but that was about it. Remus shook his head in exasperation while Grace stifled a laugh.

"Hear ye hear ye the Amazing Lily Marie Evans will now attempt to vanish an entire mouse all by herself!" Sirius announced, turning around to watch this 'amazing feat'.

She rolled her eyes and told him to 'shove off', all while sending a particularly filthy glare his way. He grinned.

With a flick of her wrist she muttered 'Evanesco' and the mouse was gone. We all clapped mockingly, none of us really surprised that she managed to get it on her first try.

She looked at me and said simply "Your turn."

I felt a pair of eyes on me and looked up to see Sirius gazing curiously waiting for me to go. I gulped unused to all eyes on me. I was determined to get it right.

"Evanesco," I said pointing my wand at the mouse. Most of the mouse disappeared, minus a foot and the tail.

Sirius snickered. I narrowed my eyes and contemplated sending a hex his way. He raised his hands in mock surrender and gestured for me to carry on.

I got it the second time, much to Sirius's disappointment. He scowled as I smirked.

"Is anybody else ready for lunch?" Lily asked.

I yawned despite myself.

"Finally. This is what keeps me living throughout the day...lunch." Gracie said with a laugh.

Wandering down to the great hall I zoned out of their conversation and found my thoughts drifting to a certain Sirius Black. We had decided for the time being not to interfere in the 'Jily' situation, thinking it for the best. That's not to say that we have given up, it's just things are a little complicated at the moment what will OWLS and whatnots coming up. Not to mention the 'Mudblood' incident.

I recalled a conversation they had had earlier that day, if you could call it that.

_"You think you're funny, but you're just an arrogant, bullying toerag, Potter. Leave him alone."_

_"I will if you go out with me, Evans. Go on, go out with me and I will never lay a wand on old Snivelly again."_

_"I wouldn't go out with you if it were a choice between you and the giant squid_!"

Nope. Two months later and they were no closer to being 'Jily' than they were at the start of the year. If anything they were further from it than ever.

A hand waved in front of my face. Judging by the ink doodles covering the hand, I assumed it was Grace.

My head snapped up.

"What?" I said, having no clue what they had been talking about.

Lily gave me a dramatic eye roll but refrained from commenting.

"We were just talking about Gracie's oh-so-obvious crush on Remus," she said

I did a double take.

"Grace has a crush on Remus? When did this happen?" I exclaimed loudly earning strange looks from passersby.

Grace blushed a bright red colour and smiled sheepishly. "Um, yes to question one and I think it happened sometime last year when I saw him shirtless. He also has some serious abs." She giggled softly.

"Someone said my name?" a loud voice boomed from behind us as we sat down in the Great hall for lunch.

We whipped around and came face to face with none other than a smirking Sirius Black.

Grace's eyes widened and she blushed when Remus looked at her. Lily gave me a knowing glance; I bit my lip to keep from laughing.

James caught the look and naturally demanded to know what it was. Just as I was about to make some witty comment Professor Dumbledore stood up to grab our attention.

"Just a quick announcement, I know this is a while away but I thought you might appreciate a heads up. In January after you return from Christmas break we will be hosting a Christmas Ball with two other schools-which shall remain nameless for now-and I want the Head Boy and Girl and the 6th and 7th year prefects to form a committee to start planning for this event. If you would be so kind as to stay behind after woods I will be most grateful; now enough stalling-tuck in!" He said with a warm smile.

Immediately the hall was immersed in excited chatter wondering who the schools were, girls were talking about dresses, guys were fretting over dates. It was chaotic.

"So Gracie, what schools do you think are coming?" Remus asked, politely trying to make a conversation with her all the while stopping James from asking what was going on.

"My guess is that the French school- Beaubaxtons- will probably come, I mean they're the closest school and those kids would never pass up an opportunity for a ball. I don't know any other schools in Europe. Thats one of the biggest though, apart from Hogwarts."

I lifted my head up and said, "Durmstrang too."

They all looked at me like I was speaking Latin or something.

I smiled, "It's a school up in Norway somewhere. My family has gone there for centuries."

Sirius screwed up his nose in confusion, "I thought it was a male only school? Where do the girls go?" he asked.

"Well I'm at Hogwarts aren't I? Besides the only women in my family are usually from marriage." I said with raised eyebrows. I avoided their curious gazes and continued to walk straight ahead ignoring my growing sense of discomfort.

Now it was Remus's turn to look confused "You're a girl..." he said bluntly.

I rolled my eyes "Thanks for pointing that out Captain Obvious. You know Black, I think Remus here might give a run for your money in the stupidity department."

Sirius scowled deeply.

Grace spoke up "I'm a pure blood- the Castilian's are another old family- I think I had to study the Hale's once. I remember reading about how much of a big deal it was when you were born; the first girl born to a Hale in 900 years...right?"

I shifted uncomfortably. My family was just that-MY family. I hated people knowing things every little detail about my life. "Uhh yeah...something like that." I muttered.

I think Sirius noticed my discomfort because he quickly changed the subject before anymore questions could be asked. That's the thing with Sirius, he knew what it was like to have an awkward background, and he knew what it was like to not want to talk about it. It was one of the many things we had in common, that kept us friends on a deeper level than with the others who all had near perfect families.

"So, Hale, are you nervous 'bout the upcoming game against Hufflepuff? I hear their seeker is pretty good." He grinned slyly.

"Are you suggesting that I can't hold my own against a HUFFLEPUFF? As in, the house known for its tendency to lose every time according to James? I'm offended. And here I thought my teammates had faith in me." I sighed dramatically.

"Well..." he started. I smacked him on the arm.

"Hey!" he complained. "No hurting the birthday boy!"

"Padfoot- your birthday isn't until next month," Remus pointed out, almost like he was talking to a small child. Sirius glared at him.

"Yeah- but she-"Sirius said jerking his thumb at me "-didn't know that!" he whined melodramatically.

"It's your birthday? When?" I asked.

"November 16th" He said smugly.

"What about the rest of you? Mine's 10th march," Remus replied.

"August 24th and Gracie's yours is...?"

"May 8th."

* * *

Sitting in the common room at midnight was really something. The fire was burning, the stars twinkled and the room had an eerie glow to it from the sparkling moonlight that streamed in through the large windows.

I often came down here to think, especially after I had a nightmare. It was almost relaxing – just me myself and the fire.

That is until a certain somebody came and sat next to me. He just watched me read. It was a little unnerving and I shifted uncomfortably under his scrutinizing gaze. I felt like he could see right through me. I felt naked, like an open book. Something I rarely was.

"Couldn't sleep?" I asked eventually. He ignored me and got straight to the point.

"So Zanna, why are you so secretive about your family? I swear you looked like you were just itching to run the minute it was brought up."

I glared at him and responded with my own retort.

"You're a fine one to talk, Black. I don't see you going around spillingbyour life story to some one you just met."

"Touché, do a swap- a story for a story if you will. I'll tell you about my family if you tell me about yours. I'll go first.

"The Noble House of Black' as they like to refer to themselves as, is a pureblood family almost as ancient as your own. A vast majority, save a few, all believe that Voldemort is some sort of king-the saviour of wizarding kind. You know blood supremacy; Muggles are filth and all that crap. I never did. From a young age I started to rebel. I didn't do much when I was younger, but when I was sorted into Gryffindor and I met James, it gave me the opportunity I needed to break away. I still have to go back for the holidays but more often than not I go to James's place. So that's me. I have a younger brother-Regulus. He's a Slytherin, naturally, and the prodigal son. He'll most likely become a death eater when he's older. There- that's my family. Now tell me about yours." He looked pointedly at me with his all seeing silvery grey eyes.

I fiddled with my hands and stalled for a while before finally looking up to see Sirius watching me, his expression waiting, expecting me to run and hide like I always do when confronted with questions like these. I wasn't about to let him have the satisfaction of being right. Plus for some reason I knew I could trust him.

I took a deep breath. "In my family, like Grace said, I am the first daughter to be born in nearly 900 years. Nothing special about me, it's just that I am a girl. My mother I think was a Muggle, I never saw her use magic. My father is a pure blood in the Hale line. They met and married. The Hale's are known for denouncing pureblood supremacy, that's why we moved to Bulgaria all those centuries ago -to get away from it all. I was eight my brother was thirteen and at his third year at Durmstrang. That was the year my father and uncle (My father's brother) disappeared. My uncle's mutilated body turned up a few years later, sometime inbetween my tenth andeleventh birthday. My mother was tortured and killed. I don't know why. I was picked up by this guy called Isaac. He's probably a Death Eager but I can't be sure. Did James tell you about that incident in Diagon alley?" He nodded.

"I figured he would. So I lived, or rather was held prisoner with him here in England and he taught me stuff. I ran away several times and when I was 13, when my Grandfather found me. So I lived with him for a few years and then he sent me to Hogwarts. So yeah here I am now."

I breathed out. I couldn't believe how easily the words came when talking to Sirius. I squeezed my fists and tried to blink back the memories and hold back the tears that came from thinking about them.

To my surprise I didn't get the pity party I was expecting. Sirius just laughed.

"Well then Hale, I suppose were in the same boat then huh." I must have looked pretty confused because he laughed again.

"You and me- we got nobody."

"You have the Potters"

"True and you have us. You just need to let us in. Nobody really cares about your background. It's you we care about. Not your father or your brother or anybody else. You can trust us you know."

"I know...it's just this isn't a topic I like talking about. I hate it. I hate the memories that come with it, I hate the feelings of abandonment I have. It's stupid but true. All my family has either died or is missing. Or else has no time for me." I felt my voice crack a little and I prayed that I wouldn't start crying.

He put an arm around my shoulder and held me close, cracking lame jokes until I smiled.

He stood up first and held out his hands. I took them and he pulled me into a hug before kissing the top of my head and letting me go.

I turned around as I was walking up the stairs as it occurred to me that I didn't know why he was down here in the first place. So I asked.

"You never did tell me why you were here, in the common room."

"And neither did you. Good night Zanna," he said with a knowing smile.

_Touché_ I thought and wandered up to bed.

A/N

*DISCLAMER* I do not own anything that you may reconsise, e.g the paragraph in italics, James, Lily, Sirius...and so on. I do own this rubbish plot, Zanna, her family and Grace, and James's parents are also OCs.

March 2013 edit: Bleh how do you people even like this story? I just edited this chapter briefly, and a few of the past ones and they are horrible. I mean my timeline and everything is all horribly wibbly and icky. Oh well. Read on! It does get better. And I will update...soon...school is nasty :P


	6. Chapter 6

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because, I'm busy."

"Busy with what?"

"Just busy."

"Honestly both of you - Shut up!" James exclaimed, torn between exasperation and amusement at our constant arguing.

I whipped dangerously around to glare at James who subsequently rolled his eyes at Remus and went back to eating his breakfast. He raised his hands in a mock apologetic gesture causing both Sirius and me to narrow their eyes at him.

"As I was saying Sirius, no I will not do your Herbology essay for you just because you forgot. Ask Remus."

He pouted, I scowled at him.

"Please! Sprout is going to flay me alive. Don't you have a heart woman?" Sirius pleaded.

I flicked my bacon at him and huffed.

"Throwing bacon Zanna? Really? What are we, 3?"

I rolled my eyes at his pathetic excuse for a comeback.

"Whatever punishment you get is entirely your fault and you deserve it. And for the record, just because you have the mental age of a 3 year old doesn't mean that I do."

He flicked the bacon back. It hit me in the arm. I narrowed my eyes dangerously.

"You, my dear, just don't want me to beat you hence why you won't help me. Remind me again why you are not a snake? Honestly, with a selfish streak like yours it's anybody's guess as to how you end up in the lions den." He teased, smirking at my unladylike snort.

"I could beat your sorry arse in Herbology any day, even you copying my homework won't change that." I said derisively.

Now he snorted. "Really? If you're so confident then why won't you give me your work?" he asked, knowing that my pride wouldn't allow me to turn down such a challenge.

He was right. I was stuck.

I couldn't deny him my work without proving his point that I was scared, but nor could I give him the satisfaction of winning and copying my work.

"I am not scared but nor am I giving you my work." I set her chin defiantly, I was fighting a losing battle and I knew it. That didn't stop me from trying though.

Sirius smirked and held out his hand expectantly. I scowled and muttered curses under her breath. Finally, with an exasperated sigh I stood up folded my arms and tilted my head towards Sirius as if to say "Are you coming or what?"

He chuckled at my lack of the grace and good will necessary to admit defeat and shook his head, probably wondering what on earth he was going to do with the fiery hot-headed girl.

He got up slowly, enjoying the annoyed look that crossed my face.

We made our way up to the common room; I, childishly, ignored him the whole time.

"The silent treatment. Really?" He raised an eyebrow mockingly.

I gritted her teeth and tipped my chin up proudly. I took a deep breath and continued ignoring him.

"And you tell me that I act like a child!" he threw up his hands in exasperation. I hid a smile as he elbowed me gently the ribs.

"I am not acting like a child!" I retorted indignantly, pouting.

"Ha! The mute speaks! Praise Merlin!" A few people walking in the corridor turned to look at him strangely after his outburst.

"I was not a mute!" I scowled.

"I now know exactly how to manipulate you. Pride! You are too easy to bait because you can never resist a challenge!" I scowled again and slapped him hard on the arm.

"Ow!" he cried. I grinned. He so deserved that.

"Aww poor baby's hurt!" I teased.

This time he scowled, but his retort was cut off by the Fat Lady asking for the password.

I had a triumphant grin fixed on my face as I repeated the password.

"Butterscotch," I said and the portrait swung open.

I winked at him and trotted up the stairs two at a time to get my essay.

Now he was triumphant as I wordlessly glowered at him whilst handing over the essay.

"I'm still going to kick your sorry arse in Herbology you know. Essay or not." I said hotly and tossed my long hair over my shoulder.

He raised a brow curiously.

"You are currently, just barely scraping Exceeds Expectations in Herbology," he commented.

"And you're barely getting Acceptable's!" I cried, trying to figure out where exactly he was going with conversation.

"I could get O's if I wanted you know." He retorted smugly. I sensed a bet coming on.

"Prove it." I grinned. "Get an O in your Herbology OWL and for the rest of the year. No excuses."

"If I win?"

"Isn't the satisfaction of winning enough?" I threw up her hands in mock disbelief.

He grinned wolfishly and slung his arm carelessly over my shoulder.

"Nothing is ever enough for me." He whispered into her ear.

I hit his arm again. "Prat."

"So what do I get if I win?"

We had reached the Great Hall by this point and the last part of our conversation was overheard by a majority of their friends.

"Betting again?" James asked, sounding highly amused.

James high fived Sirius while Remus looked on disapproving, but even he couldn't help the amused smile that twitched at the corners of his lips. They were all used to mine and Sirius's frequent 'Challenges' as we called them. The term betting was too crude.

"Oi Prongs, a little help? What's her punishment when I win this bet?" Sirius called out.

"Why are you so bloody confident? We still have the rest of the year yet."

If truth be told, I was actually a little unnerved by his unfazed confident attitude. Not that I would ever give him the satisfaction of telling him that. But still.

"Well." James said slyly. My eyes widened in alarm, I had a slight inkling of where this was going and I was not liking it one bit.

"Zanna, you remember that boy Creevy - Hufflepuff, our year, blond hair?" I nodded, still looking alarmed. Sirius smirked, knowing full well how much this boy annoyed me.

"Well he has a rather large crush on you, and I'm sure that it would just make his day if the girl of his dreams kissed him!" I paled visibly at the thought.

"Prongs, that has to have been the best suggestion I have heard all night."

"Merlin! You're kidding? If I kiss him he'll never leave me alone!" I cried out in horror.

"Not backing out of the deal are we, Hale? I do hope you're not scared of a measly little Hufflepuff." Sirius smirked knowlingly.

My chin proudly went up and I narrowed my cool blue eyes at him defiantly.

"You wish, Black." I sneered a sneer worthy of any pureblood.

"You know, watching you two now, I would have thought you were worst enemies not friends! Honestly, I swear one day you'll snap and murder each other in your sleep." Remus exclaimed, exasperated though amused nevertheless.

"What happens to Sirius if you win?" Peter asked.

Now it was Sirius's turn to curse. Knowing him, he'd probably hoped that they would have overlooked the fact that he didn't have a punishment.

I grinned evilly.

"Well, if I have to kiss Creevey, than Sirius should have to kiss Marlene." I said, bringing out my inner slytherin.

Now it was Sirius's turn to pale.

Marlene McKinnon was well known for harbouring a not-so-secret crush on Sirius. If he were to kiss her, she wouldn't let him go until he was hers. She also had a reputation for sleeping around.

Which was exactly why it was the perfect punishment.

Peter unsuccessfully hid a snigger behind his hand and hastily tried to cover it up with a cough when Sirius's head turned his way.

Just then Grace ran into the Great Hall at full speed, tripping over the wooden bench as she did so. She screamed as she fell, her head slamming into the corner of the bench. I gasped.

James was the first to arrive by her side.

They, both being blood-traitor pureblood's, had grown up together and had been mates since childhood.

I briefly remembered what James had said when I asked him how he knew Grace. He said he had vague memories of them sharing a tree house when her family came to visit for the summer. They used to sit up there and play the wizarding version of muggle games like Tic Tac Toe, where instead of noughts and crosses you had wands and pointy hats that moved themselves across the board.

He slid his arms under her unconscious form and gently picked her up. I examined the large gash on Grace's head and nearly passed out form the sight of the waterfall of blood that streamed downed my best friends face. I hadn't been at Hogwarts long but I already knew that if anything were to happen to Grace or Lily or any of the Marauders I'd be lost.

I pressed a hand to my mouth in worry and took an involuntary step back. I momentarily lost my balance, but a pair of strong arms steadied me. I flashed Sirius a grateful glance and turned my attention back to Grace. I tightly gripped Sirius's arms with both hands for support. I hated the sight of blood, Merlin knows I'd be a terrible healer.

"She needs to go to the hospital wing." James said at last.

* * *

I recalled the only other time when I had been this worried about somebody. I had been five years old and me and my brother, who had not yet started school at Durmstrang, were playing in the forest that bordered the Hale Manor property in Bulgaria.

We had decided to take our horses out for a ride. My mother, Rosalie, had decided I was too young to ride a fully grown horse on my own and so had been given one of the more placid ponies while my brother, Aleksander, rode his stallion, Bruno.

I trotted behind him while he cantered ahead, enjoying the freedom of having nobody but themselves accompany them.

"Isn't it amazing?" He had cried, watching the sun fade below the horizon lighting up the sky in magnificent pinks and reds and oranges giving the impression that it was on fire.

He hadn't been paying much attention to where he was guiding his horse and we had soon found themselves in the heart of the woods. It was a safe haven for us by day, but an eerie place by night. It did not help my nerves that I was afraid of the dark. Not that I would ever say that to Aleksander because he would tease her mercilessly.

As we travelled deeper and deeper I started to get scared. Perhaps if it was daylight I would have been fine, but by night everything was different.

I did not recognize this part of the woods and the darkness meant that I couldn't see more than a few meters ahead of me.

My pony whinnied, clearly not enjoying this situation any more than I was.

I took deep breaths to try and calm myself down, it didn't work.

A piercing scream sliced through the chilling air like a knife.

My heart knotted itself so it was tight in my chest, fear and adrenaline coursing through my small veins.

The pony instinctively headed towards the noise, which I had immediately recognized as my brother's yell.

I had timidly called out, unsure of what to do in such a situation. I found my brother, moaning against a tree, clutching his side. The full seriousness of the situation did not hit me until she saw the blood staining his shirt and hands and the abnormal paleness of his usually tan skin.

I had screamed and fought back the urge to vomit everywhere; even at 5 years old I had enough sense to know that that would help nobody, but rather oanicing would make this worse. That didn't stop the tears form streaming down my face though.

The rest of that night was a blur. Apparently his horse had been spooked by something, a snake probably, and thrown him off. He had landed against a sharp spike of the tree and it was a ehile before the horse found its way back to the stables alerting Mama that somehting was wrong.

I had then followed the horse back to the house on my own mare, and my father had levitated Alex up onto his horse and taken him inside while Mama held me close.

For the first time in several years I slept with my parents that night, unable to shake the fear that I'd almost lost my brother, my saviour, my protector.

Needless to say he had made a full recovery, but in the eyes of a five year old me, everything seemed so much worse than it really was.

I was snapped back to reality by Sirius gently tugging my arm.

"We're taking Gracie up to the hospital wing. Come on. Evans is already there."

We walked in silence, none of us quite knowing what to say.

"Grace! What happened? Is she ok?" Lily cried as we neared the hospital wing.

She was startled to see her best friend of five years being carried in the arms of James Potter looking like death. She gulped back tears and her arms wound her way around my neck as James brought Grace inside.

He was instructed by Madame Pomfrey to place her on the bed, and to leave.

"Is she going to be ok Madame Pomphrey?" Lily asked tentatively, not quite sure if she wanted to hear the answer or not.

The nurse paused and turned to the six students who stood before her, each with a worried expression on their face and clearly not leaving before they got answers. She sighed.

"At the moment, I cannot be sure. The wound doesn't seem too deep but she did hit her head hard. There is the possibility of temporary memory loss, but that is unlikely." Seeing six stricken expressions, she quickly amended her statement.

"However Ms Castilian is strong and I am sure she will make a full recovery. How did this injury happen?"

It was Remus surprisingly who found his voice first. "She came running into the Great Hall and she must have slipped and hit her head. It happened so fast none of us really know what happened."

She nodded and went back to applying dittany to Grace's wounds.

"Would somebody please alert the headmaster and ask him to inform the girl's parents please?"

Remus offered and Peter went with him, leaving James, Sirius, me and Lily in the Hospital Wing.

Lily sighed in relief. Grace was, with any luck, was going to make a full recovery.

She hurriedly decided to go with Remus and Peter to help inform Dumbledore.

James ran a hand through his hair, a nervous habit I presumed.

"Come on, we have Quidditch Practice now." he said distractedly, we were all secretly hoping that a good game would take our mind's off things.

"Besides, little Zanna here is still a teensy bit rusty, and of course we don't her messing up against Hufflepuff of all houses now do we?" Sirius added with a teasing grin.

I rolled mt eyes and decided to ignore the little jab, choosing instead to follow the boys down to the pitch.

It wasn't even 11am yet and it had already been an eventful day.

Merlin, what was I getting myself into?

* * *

**A/N** This story has a tumblr! entering (dash) the (dash) unknown is the url. obviously add the tumblr, and the dot com.


	7. Chapter 7

"We should play 20 questions." James said, suddenly breaking the tense silence.

We were all - all meaning the Marauders, Lily and I - sitting in the hospital wing with Grace while we waited for her to wake up. According to Madame Pomfrey her injury was healing, and she would wake up in her own time. We didn't know if there would be any memory loss or other repercussions yet. It was still too early to tell.

"20 questions? Are you serious?" I regretted it as soon as I said it.

"Sweetheart," Sirius started, casually draping an arm over my shoulder. "I'm Sirius. Now I know that my dazzling good looks may have addled your brain, but really, there is no need to forget who I am." He grinned triumphantly.

I shoved him while unsuccessfully trying to wipe that insufferable smirk off his face. I scowled as he laughed and he didn't move an inch, causing my scowl to deepen.

I looked first at James, then Remus, then Lily and ignored Peter completely. He wouldn't be any use. Plus there was the fact that I really just did not like him. They all shrugged in turn.

"You asked for it," Remus pointed out, causing everybody to fall in fits of laughter again as I crossed my arms and glared. Obviously I wasn't as scary as I imagined

"Back to the original topic - 20 Questions anyone? C'mon it's a Saturday and it'll pass the time."

We sighed submissively. When James Potter sets his heart on something he usually gets it.

"Since I came up with it, I'll start. I'll ask a question and each of you answer in turn. Then the next person asks a question and so on. Got it?"

We nodded.

"Good. What is your favourite colour? Mine is red and gold."

Of course. Gryffindor pride at its finest.

"Pick one, Sirius."

"Redgold. There. One word, one colour,"

There was a flash of a triumphant grin, the sound of an exasperated sigh and the sight of an eye roll that was torn between amusement and annoyance.

"Bubblegum."

"Is that even a colour Pete?"

More eye rolls combined with amused chuckles.

"Well yes, you see it's this shade of pink..."

Lily cut him off, knowing that none of us wanted to hear some long winded explanation of why 'bubblegum' which apparently is a shade of pick, is a colour.

Who knew? Peter liked pink.

"Green."

Horrified gasps escape from Sirius's mouth,

"Traitor! Prongs, the love of your life likes green! That's a Slytherin colour!"

"This calls for an intervention!"

"I'll get our list of reasons why Slytherins are bad, Prongs - you're in charge of bringing Evans. Wormtail help me, Moony you're with Prongs on operation Save Evans From Evil. All clear?"

This ought to be good.

"What on earth makes you think I'll be able to get Evans to willingly come to an Anti-Slytherin Intervention?" James asked, eyes wide in plausible fear at what Lily would do to him if he tried anything.

"Who said anything about willingly?"

Sirius took one look at James's horrified face and sighed.

"Coax her then. 'Woo' her, bribe her with chocolate? You like chocolate don't you Evans?"

Lily was too in shock to speak, Remus was in hysterics watching this 'Intervention' unfold and I was having too much fun at Lily's expense to do anything, even when she sent me pleading looks.

"Oi Evans, how about a date? I'll educate you on the rules of being a Gryffindor. We'll go to the room of requirements and there'll be chocolate. I'll even spend my allowance on lilies for you as opposed to buying Sirius a birthday present."

"Hey!"

"Sorry mate," James replied, not sounding sorry at all.

He turned his attention back to Lily. "If you're lucky Evans I'll even let you snog me."

He winked seductively. Lily gagged like there was no tomorrow.

I clutched my stomach and nearly fell of my chair from laughing. Remus was in the same predicament as me, trying unsuccessfully to hide his amusement.

"Why on earth would I want to snog you?"

"Why wouldn't you? I'm James Potter, all the girls want to snog me."

"I don't. Grace doesn't." I felt the need to point that out.

He waved his hand dismissively. "You're different. You wait Evans. You'll fall for me eventually." He smirked.

"Now about that date..."

Madame Pomfrey took that opportunity to shoo us out of the infirmary just before World War Three, Wizard-Style, broke out.

"Hey! Where are you lot going? Lilykins, what about our date!" James cried, melodramatically waving his arms about.

She snorted. "The day I date you Potter is the day that pigs fly."

He grinned mischievously."Padfoot, I think I know what our next mission is."

He and Sirius high fived. Peter just looked lost. Sometimes I wonder what on earth the Hat was thinking when it out Peter into Gryffindor.

Remus noted Peter's face was screwed up in concentration trying to figure out what he missed. Remus evidentially took pity on the poor kid and explained the 'mission'.

"Pete, the next 'mission' is to make pigs fly."

A look of understanding dawned upon Peters face. He looked like a kid on Christmas when he started bouncing up and down excitedly on his tubby little feet. I found it hilarious to watch.

Lily and I parted ways with the boys and we headed to the second floor.

"You never did say what your favourite colour was," she said. It was one of those statements-that-are-really-questions type things.

"My favourite colour?"

"Yeah. I'm pretty sure Remus likes brown, you know like Grace's eyes type brown."

She said slyly, wiggling her eyebrows causing me to laugh again.

I thought about it. I didn't know what my favourite colour was, I like a lot of colours. After much internal deliberation I decided on a dark purple-ly colour.

"Indigo." She nodded apreciativley.

We were passing moaning Myrtle's bathroom when I had an idea.

"Why has Myrtle never left her bathroom? I mean she's been to enough of Hogwarts that she could leave if she wants to."

Lily shrugged. "She has bad experiences here, people are mean to her. She never gets the same respect the house ghosts get. Why?"

I could hear her crying from here, horrible lonely heart-breaking sobs. I shuddered.

"Well, she likes to cause havoc doesn't she? I reckon that she'd get a kick out of stalking Sirius. I would too, it'd be hilarious. Just for a day or so. Maybe I should change the terms of my bet. Instead of kissing Marlene he has to spend a week with Myrtle." I mused quietly.

"That's kind of mean don't you think?"

I looked at her quizzically.

"I mean she does just want somebody to talk to. But then again if you were to set her on Black and Potter... just for a day. Well it wouldn't do any harm would it? She is totally in love with him, ever since she met him in first year..." she trailed off looking thoughtful.

"What are you suggesting?" My curiosity was killing me.

"Well nothing really. We just talk to Myrtle and she does the rest. We just have to watch and wait. She'll probably try to kiss him or something."

"She won't leave her bathroom."

"We make Black go to her then."

"How?" She grinned, rather evilly I must say.

"A dare."

Now she was speaking my language.

"I taught you well, Lily." She grinned slyly.

"You take care of Black, and I'll take care of Myrtle."

So we carried out the plan. Never one to back down from a dare, especially when it was implied that he was scared of poor dear innocent Myrtle, he readily agreed.

If only Grace was awake to see this... I immediately felt guilty. We hadn't gone back to see her since Madame Pomfrey kicked us out this morning.

What if she woke up and we weren't there? I immediately dismissed this thought. She was allowed to leave the Hospital Wing as soon as she woke up, we would've seen her between then and now.

An hour later we were all, minus Sirius who was otherwise occupied in a certain girls bathroom with a certain ghost of the one and only Moaning Myrtle, sitting in the great all and apart from the occasional mini food fight it was a completely uneventful dinner.

So we thought.

Sirius came charging into the great hall, his aristocratic features a comical mix of fear, disturbed and completely freaked out. In the background we heard the voice of Myrtle call out seductively, "Oh Sirius...I wasn't finished with you yet..."

He paled even more. I couldn't help it, I burst out laughing. His face was absolutely priceless. James, being the good mate that he was, didn't even try to hide his amusement.

"Myrtle eh, Pads? Nice job. Did you ask her on a date yet? I heard the ghostly ones are the best." He winked. Even the corners of Remus's mouth twitched upwards a little bit.

Sirius saw Lily's obviously guilty expression and took one look at my laughing form and grabbed us both by the arm, then dragged us all the way back to the common room, constantly looking behind him to see if she was there.

Lily sent a pleading look towards Remus who just shook his head as if to say "You deserve whatever hell you get."

"Oi! I hadn't finished my dinner yet!" I complained loudly as we were dragged down the corridor. He glared at me to shut up. I bit my lip to keep from laughing.

"What exactly did Myrtle do to shake you up so badly?"

He glared at me again. I sat down in one of the plush red chairs.

"I don't want to talk about it." He flushed.

"She tried to make a move on you didn't she? And you said no, so she tried to make you. That is brilliant. I'll have to thank her for that; the look on your face was priceless."

I stopped talking when I saw the look he was giving me.

"You set her on me didn't you?" He accused, his eyes narrowing.

I bit by lip and looked at him, maybe feeling just a tad guilty.

"I just dared you to go into her bathroom and spend an hour with her. Which by the way, you successfully completed."

He once again glared at me. I felt a little nervous. Had I gone too far? I wasn't a prankster, not at all. I just wanted payback for those few incidents such as Sirius turning my hair blue for a week, that horrible bet we made and a few other minor incidents.

He exploded. "I cannot believe that you set me up for that! It's Myrtle! Everybody knows that she has had a crush on me since forever. Then you go -" he jabbed his finger in my general direction, "And set her on me! It wasn't funny!" He was whining like an indignant kid, always a sign that we were good. He pouted and I burst into laughter.

I rolled my eyes and was about to retort when Lily walked in. I looked to where she had been sitting and realized she must've slipped out while we were arguing.

She was grinning happily. I looked behind her and my face lit up.

"Gracie!" I screamed.

Her, Lily and I were in the middle of a complicated group hug with squealing and jumping when Sirius cleared his throat.

"When you girls are done suffocating Grace, I would like to say that Gracie, love. That had to be the most spectacular fall in the history of falls. Not even Diana Potter can make a fall look that awesome." He smirked.

Grace grinned and hugged him before being traded off in turn to James, then Remus, who blushed a little when she hugged him. When James and Remus had appeared was yet another mystery.

I yawned, and followed Grace and Lily into our dorms and the guys went to theirs.

* * *

"What on earth possessed you to have a bet with Sirius of all people?" Lily said later, half amused, half appalled at the bet we had made the other day about Sirius's intelligence in herbology.

I shrugged and grinned sheepishly, finding this conversation very amusing.

"I hope you lose Zanna, it'll serve you right. He's a Marauder! You can't trust them!"

"You trust Remus." I pointed out.

"That's different, he is actually nice!" Lily scowled.

"So is Sirius!"

"I grew up with James, he's OK too you know." Grace pitched in. Ah she was a total sweetheart. Merlin I have awesome friends.

I flashed Lily a triumphant grin. It was two against one. I win.

Grace tried to hide her laughter behind a cough, but Lily, being Lily, still heard it.

"When little Davey Creevy starts following Zanna, and by default us, around next year you won't be laughing then."

She flicked around to glare at me. She had tutored Creevy in potions last year, and apparently she didn't like him any more than I had.

My smug smile faded and was replaced by a look of offense.

"Are you really so convinced I'll lose?" I cried indignantly. I glared at Lily as she realized that she had regained the upper hand.

Just as Lily was about to reply with a smug retort the dormitory door started creaking, like somebody was trying to open the door but couldn't because we'd locked it.

Grace got up to unlock the door and let whoever it was in. I peered around my bed post to try and see who it was.

It was Mary McDonald, one of the other two Gryffindor 5th years. I looked at Lily who just shrugged. Mary was a nice girl, she and Marlene - the last Gryffindor - were close, but the rest of us - Grace, Lily and myself - didn't actually know her.

After a moment she spotted Lily and said "Lily, Snape is out in the corridor. He won't leave until you talk to him."

Lily scowled. I followed her down, I wouldn't put it past Snape to slip her a love potion or something.

"Guys..." She trailed off.

"I'm not leaving you alone with Snape-" Grace spat his name. "And I'm sure Zanna won't either. You can't trust him Lily. No matter how much you try he is never going to change!" She almost yelled that last bit.

I looked at Grace with new respect. She had never spoken anything bad, not really, about another person. I suppose Snape was a special case.

Lily looked torn. In the end she went alone while we stayed in the common room and she went into the hall. We could still sort of hear what was being said.

*"I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just —"

"Slipped out? It's too late. I've made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends ... You've chosen your way, I've chosen mine."*

Voices were raised, it sounded like their fight was escalating. I heard Lily's voice break a little on the last word.

"Lily, please! I-I'm sorry!"

"Don't touch me, don't talk to me. Just leave me alone Snape." Her voice was hard and completely ice-cold.

"So what? Now you're going to run around with those filthy so called Marauders instead of me? I can keep you safe Lily. Lily stop - please!"

He was pleading with her, his cowardly voice breaking as Lily turned around and left him for the last time.

I shuddered as I listened to him sob in the hallway.

Lily stormed back into the common room, her face surprisingly free of tears. She raised her chin and locked eyes with me.

"Well, I think it's time to see just how 'filthy' those marauders are." She smiled weakly.

Graces' and my face broke out into huge smiles. Sirius and James must've heard it all because James had already stormed out of the room, to chase Snape no doubt, and Sirius said cheerily,

"Tonight. Room of requirements, 8pm for a traditional Marauder version of truth or dare."

I grinned and looked at Lily. She smiled back. Operation Lily and James was back on track.

* * *

A/N I made Mary a 5th years along with Marlene because three girls in one year is a tad unrealistic don't you think? So now there is five. * That was taken form JKR Rowling not me.

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER ANYTHING YOU RECOGNISE IS NOT MINE only the plot Zanna and Grace are mine,

**Thank you **Hopeful Forever More, Chloe95,xXallegedangelXx,CelticCrossings,Nacho5, Loony Moony Padfoot and Prongs, Mist Hitachiin, Alarice Tey, Annaisadinosaur, MnM-Flurry. **For the Reviews xxx**

And also, theres a one shot 'Of Mistletoe and Flying Pigs' which I think you'll enjoy...

Liza


	8. Truth or Dare

A/N:**How does one apologize for going so long with no updates?**

*Ducks and hides from angry readers throwing tomatoes*

I know there isn't really a plot in this story at the moment, but there is the mystery of what happened to her father and her past, not to mention the Sirius/Zanna blossoming romance and the Grace/Remus progress!

_**For you Gremus fans you'll like this chapter**_!

I have big plans for the upcoming Ball (DW if you've forgotten about it. It'll resurface soon enough.)

* * *

"Zanna." I looked up from my Transfiguration homework to see Lily hovering over me. "We have a slight problem. It's 10 to 8 and neither Grace, me, nor you know where this 'Room of Requirements' is."

"You two mean to tell me that you've been at this school for 5 years and never once heard of this Room of Requirements? What is it Hogwarts' best kept secret?" I joked.

"Actually love," I groaned as a pair of hands covered my eyes, "The Room Of Requirements IS Hogwarts' best kept secret. It's so secret that nobody but myself, Prongs, Moony and Wormtail know where it is. And we'd like to keep it that way." His voice had dropped to a whisper in my ear as he talked about this mysterious room.

I opened my mouth to say something smart but he quickly covered it with his hand while the other kept my eyes covered. Shadow purred from her perch on my shoulder.

"Moony, you take Grace, and Prongs, you take our dear Tiger Lily. I'm on this one." He winked and I bit his hand. He yelped.

"Hey! Not nice!"

"Don't cover my mouth with your hand then!"

"You know, most girls like it when I touch them..." he started suggestively.

"That's only because they're idiots with brains the size of a pea and have little or no self esteem thus are flattered that Hogwarts' notorious man-whore is actually paying them some attention! I mean, 'It's Sirius Black! Oh, he's so handsome. What I wouldn't give to be just another notch on his bed post. *dreamy sigh*' that was sarcasm by the way. Just in case you didn't know."

I smiled sweetly as Sirius glared.

"Hey! I resent that! I am not a man-whore...I just like a good time! And not all the girls I choose to spend my time with are, quote, "idiots with brains the size of a pea and little or no self esteem"...are they Prongs?" He trailed off as James shook his head.

"Sorry mate. I agree with Zanna on this one."

"Remus?" Sirius was hopeful.

He shook his head. "Sorry Padfoot."

Just then Peter entered the room.

Sirius's face lit up. A potential ally he was thinking no doubt.

"Wormtail! You agree with me, right?"

Peter nodded, wide-eyed and confused. No doubt thinking about food.

"Sure Pads...what am I agreeing to?" He whispered the last part to James who laughed and clapped him on the back.

"We are trying to decide whether or not all the girls Sirius ever...'dated' are pathetic, pea-brained and insecure and that Sirius is a man whore."

"Ahh." Peter nodded. "They are."

"At least they're hot!" Sirius replied indignantly.

James snorted.

"Define 'hot' Mate. If you mean big boobs and good in bed then sure they're hot."

Sirius sighed. "For the record, I am not a man-whore. If you want a man-whore, look at Caradoc Dearborn; now he's a man-whore."

Lily and I snorted while James and Remus tried not to laugh. I couldn't see Sirius's face but I'd bet my entire vault at Gringotts (which is rather on the large side) that he was indignant and pouting.

I bit my lip. "Umm Sirius? Can you please remove your hands from my eyes? I can't see."

"That's kind of the point Sweetheart. You see I meant it when I said the ROR-"

"The...ROR?"

"The room of requirement. Now shush, or I'll cover your mouth again."

"Do that and I'll bite you."

"Now now, I know you want me but that's no reason to be violent, love. I mean, I'm not opposed to a little biting every now and then but at least save it for the bedroom!" he said amused.

I groaned and flushed but was interrupted before I could reply.

"Back to the original question? And while you're answering that, Potter you can get your slimy hands off me!" Lily huffed.

"All right." James over-exaggerated his sigh. "Wormtail! Get the blindfolds out! Operation Truth or Dare is in progress!"

I couldn't see what was going on, but I could hear somebody fumbling around in a bag, presumably Peter looking for the 'blindfolds'.

"Wait...blindfolds? What's going on?" somebody asked. It sounded like Lily.

"Hush my Lily-Flower! All will be revealed in time!" James said in an eerie voice.

"This isn't a blindfold! It's a handkerchief! Tell me it's clean and not Peter's!" Peter was notorious for his disgusting lack of hygiene. Typical Grace. Not concerned at all about where we were going. Oh no she trusted the Marauders; she just didn't want to have Peter germs all over her face.

James chortled. "Hush, Grace. I swear on Padfoot's life that these are clean."

Sirius's hands were removed as he caught the handkerchief that Peter chucked him.

The scene I saw before me was hilarious. Grace was blushing redder that I thought possible as Remus's hands gently brushed her hair out of her face to put the blindfold on.

Lily was continually slapping away a smirking James's hands as he went out of his way to play with her hair and annoy her taking the longest time possible to put the blindfold on.

"Potter! Put. My. Hair. Down!" she screeched loudly. I winced.

"Whoa Flower! Breathe in and out, in and out, in and out...try to relax..." James said, in what supposed to be a calming voice, like a yoga instructor or something. I bit my lip to hold in my laughter as what he said came across as incredibly suggestive.

"Potter..." Lily growled, clearly not appreciating his innuendoes.

My sight was soon covered up with what appeared to be a pink polka-dot hanky.

"Pink? Are you serious?" The minute I said it, I wished I could take the words back.

Sirius was incredibly close, standing behind the chair I was sitting on, his breath hot on my neck.

"Love, I'm always serious. It's my first name after all." I'll bet you my entire vault at Gringotts that he winked.

"This how you seduce your potential conquests, Sirius? Make Sirius/Serious jokes?"

"You'll see love. Oh, and by the way, I just winked seductively." His voice sent shivers down my spine due to our close proximity.

"Alright you two, enough flirting. Let's go! Onwards...MARCH!" James cried like a General in the war.

"Hey! We weren't flirting!" I replied indignantly.

I could hear Lily cough something that sounded suspiciously like, "Sure you weren't." I scowled.

Sirius grabbed my hands and pulled me to a standing position. I stumbled forwards a bit, almost falling flat on my face. Luckily, I was saved from that humiliating fate as a pair of strong arms caught me around the waist and righted me on my feet again. Shadow dug her claws into my shoulder to stop from falling off. She let out an annoyed mew.

"Careful, love," he murmured sounding amused.

"Not a word," I hissed back, blushing a bit. He kept one arm around my waist, guiding me. I was waiting for the suggestive "I know you want me" comment, but it never came.

"A thank you would be nice, you know. I did just save your pretty face from colliding with the floor."

"Oh, you think I'm pretty now? And your concern is touching," I said, sarcastic as always.

"Any guy who doesn't think you're pretty is either blind or gay."

I was taken by surprise. I knew that I had taken after my mother in the looks department, as in I was her spitting image, but I'd never considered myself 'pretty' as such. I always felt that her features looked odd with my father's colouring.

"Umm...Thanks. I think." I wasn't entirely sure how to respond. I was pretty sure I blushed. I only hoped he didn't notice.

"It was a compliment love. Now watch your step, there's stairs coming up."

We walked in a comfortable silence. I could hear the others up ahead. Lily was arguing with James about something insignificant. The day those two get along will be the day that Hell freezes over.

Grace and Remus were having a quiet conversation, I couldn't make out what they were saying but I heard Remus's soft chuckles and Grace's stammers. I knew she was blushing from the way she stuttered and tripped over her words.

Suddenly the others ahead of me stopped causing me to run into somebody. Remus, I think.

"Ow!"

"Sorry!"

"Honestly Padfoot! You're supposed to be guiding her not letting her run into me!"

Sirius laughed. "Sorry mate."

"You let me run into him on purpose?" I slapped him in what I thought was his forearm and I crossed my arms angrily.

"Sorry," he sounded sheepish.

"Ok! We made it? All in one piece? Padfoot hasn't whisked Zanna back off to his dorm for a late night snog has he?"

"Why would I ever want to snog him?"

"Oh burn! Snog who?" A new voice asked.

"Fabian! Glad you could make it!" James cried.

The voice, Fabian, chuckled.

"Oi! He's not Fabian! I am!"

"No, I am!"

"I am! Liar!"

"No, you are not! I'm Fabian!"

"I am, too!"

Grace interrupted. "Wait, so you're both Fabian?"

There was a simultaneous "Huh?" as their two heads whipped around to face Grace.

"You said 'I am too', like as well."

They furrowed their brows and then shrugged. Clearly thinking was too much for them.

I nudged Sirius in the ribs. "Think you could take my blindfold off now? I would like to be able to see where I'm going."

"Don't you trust me?" He sounded genuinely hurt.

"Wha-No! I mean yes! It's not that! Argh!" I spluttered, much to his amusement. He refused to oblige and take the blindfold off. Instead, he tightened his arm around my waist.

"Who have we got here?"

"It's the newbie!"

"She's hot!"

"I'd tap that."

"'She' is standing right here and can hear every word you're saying you know!"

They promptly ignored me.

"Think she can hear us?"

"Nah look at her. She's got a blindfold on! Can't hear a word we're saying."

The voices were laced with amusement, probably enjoying the way my cheeks flushed with anger.

"Hey!"

Once again, I was intentionally ignored.

"What'd you reckon? She as stuck up as Molly, our darling older sister? Or as awesome as us?"

"She hangs around the Marauders doesn't she?"

"Hel-loo!"

"So? Evans does too."

"Touché."

"HEY MORONS!"

That caught their attention.

"Did Newbie just call us morons? US? Fabian and Gideon? Morons?" They gasped in mock horror.

"Yes, yes I did. Now please stop talking about me like I'm not here!"

"Oooh Sirius, your girlfriend's feisty this time! What happened to the airhead variety that you usually go for? Did you run out?" They 'Tsk-ed' and shook their heads.

I narrowed my eyes. Sirius cut in before I could respond.

"Hey, I resent that!"

"Ha! I told you that all your usual girlfriends were airheads!"

"Actually, and I quote, you called them 'idiots with brains the size of a pea and little or no self esteem'."

I looked at him with raised eyebrows and smirked.

"Actually Sirius, Airhead pretty much sums up what she said," Grace spoke up, biting back a smile.

Remus readily agreed with her, so did James.

"Really Moony! Whose side are you on?! What happened to 'One for all and all for one'?! As for you Prongs, I thought you loved me! Oh my heart is broken! You backstabbing scoundrels!" Sirius cried melodramatically.

James ran forwards and threw himself at Sirius's feet and started begging.  
"Oh Padfoot! I'm sorry! Take me back! Oh I didn't mean it! I can't survive without you! We're Jarious forever!"

Sirius held his arms out and sighed. "Oh Prongs! You're forgiven! Meeting tonight 10pm." He winked suggestively and James sent him a flirtatious wave.

Remus face palmed.

"What about me guys? Can I come to the meeting?" Ahhh Peter. So innocent, it was almost cute. If he wasn't so creepy.

Sirius looked from James to Peter and back to James.

"What'd you say Prongs? You up for a threesome?" He wiggled his eyebrows causing Peter to blush as his innocent mind realized the suggestive nature of the conversation.

Lily moved over to stand next to Grace and I. "Do you think now that if James' attention is focused on being Sirius's gay lover he'll leave me alone?" she whispered.

"Talking about me Evans? How's that date sound? Tell you what, I'll even blow off my rendezvous with Padfoot tonight just for you." James smirked. Lily started ranting. Sirius placed his hand on his chest, playing up the broken heart.

Remus, Grace and I face palmed, while Fabian and Gideon laughed and Peter just looked lost.

"...Insufferable, Arrogant Toe-Rag, why would I ever go out with you?"

"My dear; Tiger Lily; Flower sweetheart. One day I promise you will see the light."

Sirius snorted. "Prongs mate, it's been...Wormtail -tally?" Peter pulled out a scrap of paper from his pocket.

"106," he squeaked.

"You've asked her out 106 times already, if she hasn't seen 'The Light' by the time it reaches 200, consider buying a lampshade."

Ouch.

James waved dismissively.

"I hate to interrupt this love-fest. It really is entertaining, but are we playing Truth or Dare or what?" One of the twins asked - Fabian or Gideon, I wasn't sure.

Sirius had come back to stand by me. "Fab, Gid, this is our newest addition to the Marauder's Girls club, welcome Zanna Hale."

Lily spluttered. "The Marauder's Girls club? What the hell?"

"Oh shush. Zanna, this one here is Fabian-"

"The hotter one of course-"

"What makes you think you're hotter? We're identical twins!"

"Nah, my hair isn't as red as yours."

Gideon snorted. "If it's not red than what colour is it?"

"Strawberry blond you dolt."

Gideon looked at his brother like he was an idiot. "Right, if your hair is strawberry blond then mine must be red-brown."

Fabian grinned. "Exactly!"

Sirius grinned and cleared his throat. "As I was saying, that's Fabian. You can tell which is which because-"

"Oi!-"

"-Don't tell her-"

"-You'll spoil our fun -"

"-some prankster you lot are-"

"-giving away secrets just because she's pretty-"

"-honestly. Girlfriend or not spilling secret is bad. Where's your Marauder Honour?"

These twins were scary the way they finished each other's sentences.

"Hey! I'm not his girlfriend!" I cried indignantly, feeling the colour rise to my cheeks.

They looked at me long and hard. I felt like this examination was some sort of test. Everybody was quiet, Remus was shaking his head, and James was trying not to laugh.

Eventually they spoke.

"Nah."

"Not possible."

"She's too good."

"He'd never be able to score-"

"-a chick like her." Fabian finished.

"What?" I asked slowly, feeling really confused.

They looked at me again. Finally, Gideon took pity on me and enlightened me.

"It's not possible that you are Sirius Blacks girlfriend."

"Why couldn't I be?" Now my pride was damaged. Who were they to imply that Sirius Black was too good for me?

Gideon shook his head. "Oh I know what you're thinking. It's not that at all."

Fabian continued. "It's just that you are way too pretty and smart to be his girlfriend. He'd never be able to score a chick like you."

"Hey! Why not?" Now Sirius was put out.

"Aww. Sorry Siri-Poo, did we damage your over-inflated ego?"

"'Bout time," I swear I heard Remus mutter.

James was in hysterics.

"Sirius Black, there's only three girls in this entire castle that you wouldn't ever be able to score and they're all standing right in front of you. Congratulations ladies, for sufficiently denting the Master's ego." James announced and mock bowed.

"Can we just play truth or dare now?" Grace asked exasperated.

"Blindfolds back on ladies!"

A few minutes later we eventually were allowed to take the blindfolds on and we found ourselves in a cozy room with loads of couches and chairs with a table and a bottle in the middle.

We moved 3 three seater couches close together so we could form a U shape around the table. I sat next to Lily and Grace; Sirius sat next to Remus and James, and Peter was stuck in-between Fabian and Gideon.

"Whoever the bottle lands on will go first. Whatever is said in this room stays in this room. Got it? Ok. Go."

James spun the bottle. It landed on Remus. James grinned evilly.

Remus shot him a pleading glance. Sirius snickered quietly as if he already knew what James was going to ask.

"Alright Remus. Truth or Dare?"

He pondered for a minute.

"Oh by the way, the bottle lights up if you lie," James said, still grinning like the Cheshire cat.

"Dare."

"Alright, Moony dearest. It has been far too long since you had a proper date. Thus you have one week – That's next Saturday - to ask a girl of your choice out. If you don't, Sirius will personally set you up with Maggie Bulstrode. I hear she does great frog impressions." He chortled.

Remus shuddered. Maggie Bulstrode was...ugh...not the ideal date. To put it nicely.

"Fine. I'll ask somebody out. What if she says no?" Remus obviously had a particular girl in mind. Sirius whispered something into his ear and grinned.

He spun the bottle; it landed on Grace. Remus looked at Sirius who nodded.

"Truth."

"Alright. Grace if I, hypothetically, were to ask you out to Hogsmeade this weekend would you say yes?" Remus sounded hopeful. Trust Sirius to play match maker...

Grace blushed. I nudged her in the ribs and grinned. Lily looked at her expectantly.

Grace took one look at Remus's sweet face and melted. "If, hypothetically, you asked me out to Hogsmeade, I would, hypothetically, say yes."

His face lit up. Sirius nudged him again.

"Oh. Right! Umm...Grace? Would you like to go to Hogsmeade with me this weekend?"

She blushed even harder. "I would love to," she said shyly.

The Prewett Twins rolled their eyes while we girls gushed. Well Lily gushed, I just grinned.

"Not that we don't enjoy-"

"A good love fest every now and then-"

"But do you think we could-"

"Get on with the game?" They finished together. They were creepy the way they finished each other's sentences.

Grace spun the bottle. It landed on Fabian - or was it Gideon? I couldn't tell.

"Fabian or Gideon whichever one you are, Truth or Dare?"

The twin grinned. "Dare."

Grace pondered for a moment, unsure of what a suitable dare for the biggest pranksters in the history of pranking. They were the Marauders' idols.

"I dare you to send Professor McGonagall a love letter from Professor Snape and vice vera."

"Challenge accepted! I, Fabian Fred Prewett shall send love letters andccause chaos!" He stood up and bowed mockingly. We cheered.

"Fred? Since when is your middle name Fred?" Gideon cried. [

Fabian shrugged. "Since I made it Fred."

"No fair! Fine if you're Fabian Fred then I'm Gideon George!" He enchanted his sweater to have G.G. in swirling gold letters on the front. Fred did the same but with F.F.

"Well, Marauders & Co. It was nice meeting you but we have detention now." They winked. "Until next time!" They pranced out of the room.

Sirius and James stared longingly after them.

They turned around at the door and winked flirtatiously while blowing kisses to James and Sirius before they left.

"Broom closet, 11pm. Meet us there for a little rendezvous." I grinned.

"Boys and their secret lovers." I shook my head.

The boys flushed. "They are not our lovers!" James said indignantly. "My only lover is Lily flower! Go out with me?"

She didn't bother gracing his question with a response.

"We just admire them. That's all! Tell them Moony!" Sirius added.

I bit my lip to keep from laughing.

"Admire my arse. More like obsessed," Remus said in-between laughing.

"Hey!" James cried. "Whose side are you on?"

"Yeah, just because you're dating Grace doesn't mean you have to side with her friends!" Sirius pouted.

Remus shrugged. "You know they say the way to a girl's heart is through her friends."

"Lies! If that were true, Lilykins here would be dating me already! I'm friends with both Grace and Zanna!" James cried pointing his finger accusingly at Remus.

"Well obviously, there has to be a mutual attraction first."

Ouch.

"Emphasis on mutual Prongs," Sirius added helpfully.

"Potter. The day there is anything more than a one sided obsession between us will be the day pigs fly. Now is this game finished or will we keep playing?"

"Alright, my turn. Zanna, Truth or Dare?" Sirius asked.  
"Dare." I raised my chin defiantly and looked him straight in the eye.

"I dare you to have a sack race with me. Looser has to string up their underwear in the Gryffindor common room."

"Be prepared Black, for the ultimate humiliation. I never lose."

"Bit cocky there, aren't we Hale?" He grinned wolfishly. "Prongs, you referee."

"Hey! Potter doesn't play fair and you know it!" Lily said. "He's partial to Black!"

Sirius winked.

"Fine. If you get James then I get Lily."

We had a stare off. I never noticed how detailed his eyes were. They weren't just grey; they were a swirling mix of silver and blue and grey. Lily cleared her throat and brought me back to reality.

"While you guys were having eye-sex the room made a track," she said.

I blushed. Sirius winked and I swatted him playfully. He picked me up by the waist and threw me over his shoulder. I screamed and pounded on his back but he point blank refused to put me down.

The track was straight and had a flag at the start and finish line. It was about 100m long.

James, Remus and Peter (who I'd forgotten was even there, he'd hardly said a word) cheered for Sirius while Grace and Lily were cheering for me.

He dumped me unceremoniously on my arse.

Scarves and flags had also appeared, violet for me and grey for Sirius.

I picked up my purple sack. "Be prepared to lose."

You know how they always say that over-confidence gets you killed? Well it does. Or in my case it makes you lose. I'd gotten a head start but I tripped over something, I think it was my cat, and Sirius overtook me just mere meters from the finish line.

"Not so confident now, are we?" He smirked. Arrogant git. I scowled.

"You so tripped me!"

"How? I was nowhere near you and neither of us has wands." I turned to look at James who was looking entirely too innocent.  
"You placed Shadow right in front of me!"

"Don't look at me! It's not my fault you're a sore loser who can't control her cat." James said feigning ignorance.

Peter chuckled. Remus had obviously turned a blind eye.

Sirius just smirked. "So Zanna, what type of underwear can we expect to see in the morning? Skimpy? Lacy? Grandma bloomers?"

I winked. "Skimpy, black, lacy and fresh from the lingerie store."

He looked as if he was in heaven. James snorted.

"Ah I do love a girl with good taste. Anyway, nobody cheated. I won because of my lucky charm!" Sirius said with a wink

As if.

Lily scowled. We all knew he was lying.

Sirius tapped me on the head.

"Now, now love. Sulking really isn't a good look for you. Wipe that scowl off your face." I scowled harder, much to the Marauders' amusement.

I huffed and rolled my eyes, fighting back a smile.

"So what's this lucky charm that managed to beat me at my own game?"

"Why, my devilishly good looks of course!"

James roared with laughter. I stared at him with raised eyebrows.

"Oh fine, it was my lucky comb. What? I'm not James; I do know the meaning of a comb." Sirius pouted and slung an arm over my shoulder. I made no move to move it.

"I will never get used to Hogwarts' food!" I declared through a mouthful of shepherd's pie.

Lily grinned. "I know! I was the same when I first came here. It's alright for Gracie; she was born and raised with this type of quality food."

"It's not my fault that I was raised with house-elves!"

"Hush Gracie, I was just teasing. Anyway, I can't believe Remus finally asked you out!" Lily cried happily. "You've been waiting forever for him to open his eyes."

"He only did it because he was dared to and I was the only girl that he was friends with aside from you two and if he asked Lily out James would kill him, and if he asked Zanna out Sirius would kill him!"

I was lost. "What?"

"What what?" Now Grace was confused.

"Why would Sirius care if Remus asked me out?"

Both Lily and Grace looked at me as if I was blind.

"Grace, I know you love to help people but Zanna needs to figure this out on her own."

Now I was really, really lost.

Grace sighed. "True."

Suddenly Diana, James's little sister who was placed in Ravenclaw, appeared at our table.  
"Hullo Grace, Zanna." We smiled and said hi. She looked at Lily. "You must be Lily! You're even prettier than James said! I'm Diana, first year. James's little sister." She clarified, seeing Lily's confused face. She turned to me. "Zanna, hurry up and open your eyes to what is so damn obvious that I can see it! And everybody knows that I am the least observant person in the universe."

"So you just casually came over to the Gryffindor table to torture me with a secret that apparently everybody but me knows? I can totally see how you and James are related."

The fiery red head snorted. "Just because we don't look alike, Zanna, doesn't mean we don't share certain...quirks. Such as curiosity, mischievousness, and our devious cunning." She winked. Lily groaned.

"Please say you're not a mini-James Potter!" She cried.

"Oi! What's wrong with a mini-me?" Speak of the devil and he shall appear.

James engulfed his litter sister in a hug before turning his attention back to Lily who was listing all of the things that are wrong with James Charlus Potter.

I took a moment to compare the siblings. They both had the same warm hazel eyes and charming smile. But while Diana was paler with red hair, James was tanned from all his time outside and his hair was a dark, almost black, brown. Similar to mine. Despite the difference in colouring, they did look remarkably similar; it was obvious that they were siblings.

They had similarities in their mannerisms as well. For example, both fiddled with their hair when they were nervous. James ran his fingers through his hair to mess it up while Diana preferred to grab it and twist it over one shoulder or braid little bits of it.

I was brought back to reality by a snowy owl landing in front of me with a letter attached to its leg.

I recognized the handwriting immediately. Slowly I opened the letter and read it, taking in every word, trying to picture the voice and see the face that I hadn't seen or heard in over five years.

No freaking way.

* * *

A/N So did you like it? How about the Prewett twins and Diana? They were an experiment, do you want more of them?

This was ALMOST 5000 words! 21 pages! I hope this made up for it!

Favourite line? Moment? Least favourite? Speculation on who sent the letter and what was in it.

**Thanks to my amazing super duper Beta Martian Goddess (whose stories you should totally check out)!**

A few important things:

1) I changed the name of this.

This IS When the Marauders meet the New kid, but the name changed to Entering the Unknown.

2) This story has a picture! And on my profile there is a link to my photobucket account which has more pictures, plus a ScorRose picture too! Hope you like them! Let me know what you think in PM, review or a comment on my photobucket!

3) I have like a gazillion more one shots if you want to check them out, some next-gen, a Lily/James drabble and a few Drastoria.

4) Please review! I want to know what you think, how to improve and I love the happy feeling of knowing somebody likes my story. It really makes my day.

Nearly 2000 hits! Now if only some of those 2000 people would review...*hint hint*


	9. FINALLY AN UPDATE

**A/N **

Dear Merlin do you all hate me yet? Do you remember this story?I am trying to go for weekly updates, but senior year is incredibly stressful and I really don't have much time anymore. **What I ask is that if I go two weeks without updating, you all PM me screaming for an update**. I would like to thank Evytheworm for her review on Chapter one that prompted me to finish this. Also please excuse any errors, I was in a rush and I checked it over but my beta didn't so eep if there are any politely point them out please.

**BIG QUESTION**: I am aware that a majority of this story is absolute crap, I.E chapters 1-5. Do you people think its ok, or would you rather I rewrite it? Rewriting may or may not change the plot slightly, and would probably take forever to be uploaded but it may or may not be better quality.

love to all my supermegafabby readers, both silent and reviewers (3444 hits! Yay!)

I apologize for the angst...

BTW go to the Entering the Unknown photobucket on my profile for casting pics, let me know what you think!

-Liza, who was know as Lizaluvsdoggies but underwent a Regeneration and is now Forever Siriusly Sirius!

* * *

**Recap**: _Zanna lost the sack race and so her underwear will be hung up in the common room for all to see, apparently there is a big secret that 'even Diana Potter can see' that Zanna can't - something to do with Sirius being furious if Remus asked Zanna out, Remus and Grace are going on a date to Hogwarts (yay Gremus!) Fabian and Gideon made an impromptu appearance and Zanna received a mystery letter from somebody she is clearly not very pleased with. And thats what you missed on EtU :P_

Last Chapter:

_I was brought back to reality by a snowy owl landing in front of me with a letter attached to its leg._

_I recognized the handwriting immediately. Slowly I opened the letter and read it, taking in every word, trying to picture the voice and see the face that I hadn't seen or heard in over five years_.

* * *

I took a deep breath to try and conceal the complete freak out that I knew was coming. I vaguely remember muttering an excuse about needing the bathroom or something as I stood up to exit the hall. The crisp white envelope containing the offending letter was left on the table.

I exited the hall in what I hoped was an inconspicuous manner- the last thing I wanted right now was unwanted attention.

Somehow I made it all the way to the common room, which was empty seeings as everyone was at breakfast, without being seen.

I made my way to my favourite spot, the little seat under the window that overlooked the grounds.

My brother was coming to Hogwarts. The same brother that I hadn't properly seen or talked to in over five years.

I leaned my head against the window and closed my eyes, hoping that when I opened them this would all be a dream.

"Zanna?"

A voice floated intruded on my deluded fantasies.

Slowly, I opened my eyes and turned my head towards the figure standing uncertainly next to me.

"Sirius? What are you doing down here?"

I already knew the answer.

"Looking for you. You've been gone for ages. Lily was worried."

I looked at him, that look that said 'I know you're lying.'

He sighed dramatically. "Fine, maybe James was worried too. Though he'd never admit it. You know how he is, all high and mighty and proud."

I smiled slightly, allowing his attempts to cheer me up to work.

"Really? James is the 'high and mighty and proud' one now is he? Funny, I thought that title belonged to someone else..." I raised an eyebrow.

He smirked briefly, sending me his signature grin.

"Oi, fatty, shove over would you? Honestly you are such a bench hog."

"Did you just call me fat and a bench hog in the same sentence?"

He winked, "Move, I want to sit down."

He pushed my legs off the seat with a little too much force, consequently causing me to fall of the seat and land on the ground with a resounding 'thump.'

I rolled over onto my back as I laid on the floor.

"Sirius Black you complete arse. You pushed me too hard on purpose to show off your 'oh so amazing' strength, to quote your obsessive stalkers. Save the showing off for your fan club, at least they'll appreciate it."

He feigned a wounded expression, "Are you saying you aren't a part of my fanclub? What is this! I have been living a lie!"

I rolled my eyes at his dramatic outburst.

"Help me up, and stop being such a git."

"As you wish, Milady," he said cheekily.

I didn't like the mischievous grin that adorned his face. I was right to be suspicious

Casually he held out his hand, which I grasped. He effortlessly pulled me up to my feet.

Then, he pulled me back down, so I fell on top of him.

"Oof! You great git! If you wanted to cuddle, ask Marlene. You know she's been fawning over you all term."

I scowled as I climbed off him, ignoring his barking laughter as I sat down beside him, placing my feet in his lap. I leaned back against the wall, tilting my head to face the window.

"You left your letter on the table, you know." His quiet voice interrupted my thoughts.

"Your point?"

"Why did you run?"

"You didn't answer my question."

He inclined his head. "You didn't answer mine."

I looked up to see him looking at me with a mixture of concern and curiosity. I said nothing for a long while. Eventually I spoke,

"I didn't run. I was merely walking quickly. I told you I needed the bathroom." I stared at him, willing him to challenge me.

Unfortunately for me, Sirius Black wasn't the type to give up so easily.

"Oh yes, the bathroom. Right, that explains why I found you in the common room then, hmm?"

"What can I say? I like the view."

"The view? Really?" He raised an eyebrow skeptically, he knew a lie when he saw one. That didn't mean I couldn't try.

"Yes, Sirius, the view. The bathrooms in the girls dorms have a gorgeous view of the lake, but the ones near the ground floor? Nothing, nada. Just an old shack, miserable really."

I leaned my head on the window again, averting my eyes from his face. I knew it was frustrating him, my lack of response, but I wasn't the type to be read like a book. I was more like a safe, zealously guarding my secrets, keeping them all locked up tight, and safe. Right where I liked them. I had never once considered changing.

Suddenly he growled, his eyes stormy, swirling with anger, locked onto mine. I shrank back, the tiniest bit.

"Fine! If you don't want to accept any help when it's offered, thats totally your problem not mine. You keep your mysterious letter, and all your bloody family issues to your self. Don't trust me. Don't expect any support from me when you suddenly find yourself alone because you keep pushing all of your friends, who care about you, away."

He roughly shoved my feet off his lap and gave me one last look before storming out of the common room while I sat there wondering what the hell just happened. My letter was on my lap.

He stopped at the door briefly and turned around. The anger was clear on his face, but there was something else present too, something that, for the first time in 15 years, made me reconsider my locked safe policy.

It was hurt.

I grabbed my books and made my way back down to the Great Hall, only to find that everyone had already gone to class. I swore quietly. I had transfiguration first.

I hurried to the class, barely five minutes late. I slid into my seat in between Lily and Grace, ignoring their hushed whispers of 'where were you?' and 'everything okay?'

I crossed my fingers, praying my late entrance wouldn't be noticed.

"Ms. Hale, care to tell me why you were late?"

Apparently, the fates were out to get me.

"Umm," I was at a loss for what to say.

"She was with me, I apologize professor I forgot my book and I made her come with me to get it."

Sirius strolled into the classroom, at the sound of his voice I swiveled my head to look at him, but he steadily avoided my gaze.

Professor McGonagall narrowed her eyes suspiciously, "That true, Ms. Hale?"

All I could do what nod. After the argument (If you could even call it that, I prefer to think of it more as...a minor disagreement,) we'd had earlier, the last thing I expected him to do was save my sorry arse in Transfiguration. If our positions had been reversed, I probably would have thrown him to the wolves, or in this case, McGonagall. Not that there was really much of a difference, although maybe Minnie was more like a lioness...I smiled a little at the joke, however lame it was. Sirius would've laughed.

Eventually, after surveying us with her scrutinizing gaze, she nodded.

I sighed in relief, we were off the hook.

"Detention, both of you. My office, seven O'clock. Do not be late."

Thought too soon. I slumped in my chair, trying to catch Sirius's attention. He was still avoiding me. James, however, sent me his usual bubbly smile. I sent a lame attempt at a smile back. He frowned a little. I had never felt so small in my life.

Lily must have noticed the way Sirius was avoiding me, as she whispered quietly, '"What is going on between you two? You were attached at the hip yesterday, and you were fine at breakfast, but now he looks like he wants to murder you. What happened?"

I shook my head, half not wanting to give McGonagall another reason to give me detention, and half just not really wanting to talk about it. I knew I could trust Lily, and I knew I owed her something for the time when she told me about her family issues, but I just couldn't bring myself to open up. Opening up means letting people in, giving them power over you. The kind of power that can get you hurt.

I somehow survived the day, barely having any contact with the Marauders at all. Sirius was purposely ignoring me, not looking my way, not speaking to me, nothing. It was like I didn't exist. And it hurt.

People whispered as I walked past, I knew Sirius hadn't been with a girl in a while, he had never been as big a player as he was made out to be, but, according to Lily, it was still unusual for him to have not had a girlfriend all term. Now, apparently, he was back on the market, and he showed no signs of wanting anything to do with me. I narrowed my eyes as I saw him flirting with Marlene. I can't deny that it hurt, but if he wanted to act like I was nothing to him, then that's what he's going to get. Proudly I straightened, plastering a smile on my face, walking right by him without a second glance.

I made it to my dorm before collapsing on my bed, buying my face in my pillow. Trying to ignore someone, possibly the only person who could ever understand you, was torture.

I didn't want to loose Sirius, he was the closest thing I had to a best friend, we both came from messed up families, we both had trust issues and the ability to be aloof if the time called for it. We had our issues, abandonment, trust, estranged siblings, and he was the only person who could ever understand why Alexei contacting me after all these years was like being told you had three months to live.

Lily might understand the sibling issue, but she would never understand the betrayal I felt when I found out my father left, or that my grandfather took three years to get me from Isaac's place.

But for some reason, I told her anyway.

I felt the bed sag as she sat down next to me.

"Want to tell me what the hell is going on between you and Sirius? And don't even try telling me it's nothing. We all saw you leave this morning, I know you got a letter. Give me a little more credit please."

She looked at me imploringly.

I bit my lip and shifted around so I could face her.

Lily's green eyes met mine, full of genuine concern when I said nothing.

"Prove to me you are a Gryffindor, Zanna. Show me you can be brave. Stop internalizing everything and keeping secrets, or one might think you're a Slytherin!" She joked.

I continued saying nothing.

"But seriously Zanna, I don't need to know details, just don't forget you have friends who care."

She got up to leave, it was then I realized how much over the last few months everyone had really begun to mean to be. I learnt the hard way this morning what being silent does to friendships, and I was not about to loose two people in one day.

"Lily wait."

She slowly sat back down.

"You want to know why Sirius made a point of ignoring me today?"

She nodded.

I inhaled slowly.

"The letter came from my brother, Alexei, he's five years older than me and I haven't spoken to him since I was eleven, when my mum died. Anyway, Sirius wanted to know why I left the hall so quickly. I kind of refused to tell him. Bit stupid of me in hindsight actually." I laughed nervously.

Lily just looked at me like I was the worlds biggest idiot, which I probably was.

"Zanna, I love you, I do, but Merlin you can do the stupidest things sometimes. Go to Sirius, tell him everything. Grovel at his feet for mercy and beg for forgiveness. You are Zanna and Sirius, the best guy/girl friendship to ever exist. Now fix it."

"You make it sound so simple."

"Honestly! Some Gryffindor you are. All pride and no guts! Really, you argued, you barely survived the day with him sending you death glares, so you apologize. Kiss and make up."

I raised an eyebrow at her choice of words, but hugged her nevertheless and set out to do exactly what she just said.

All I had to do was meet him in detention and pray he listens to me.


	10. Chapter 10

**_A/N _**

Everybody bow down and cheer for me because this has to be the fastest update I have ever done. Thank **Amazing Ami** (_AlwaysPadfoot_) **Neurotic** **Nayla** {Sorry darling I couldn't think of another N word) (_The Original Horcrux_) and _Luckycharm944 _for their various challenges and prompts and encouragement for these fast updates! I'm attempting weekly, or once every two weeks.

**I know these chapters are horrible, but I have three major exams next week so bare with me please!**

**prompt used:** "Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it." Courtesy of Writing Prompts Challenge/Competition.

~Liza

* * *

Making my way down to Professor McGonagall's office gave my brain ample opportunity to imagine every single possible thing that could go wrong when I eventually got around to apologizing to Sirius and getting my mate back. It had only been a day, but at the risk of sounding horribly cliche, I missed him.

The scenarios my lovely brain took the liberty of coming up with ranged from end of the world kind of bad involving the earth being taken over by evil vampires or burning up as Sirius and I parted ways forever, and I turned to the dark side because I had also lost all of my friends who never forgave me for what I did to him, and we became like the Morgana and Merlin of the 1970's, all the way to butterflies and rainbows where James and Lily got together and had cute little Potter babies and an army of Quidditch players, while Remus got over his self depreciating fantasies and married Gracie, and Sirius somehow got his hands on a black horse with grey eyes for no other reason than horses with black hair and grey eyes are awesome, and we rode off into the sunset and lived in a castle as King and Queen of a fictitious land.

Needless to say my brain had a flair for the dramatics. That aside, I genuinely was worried about his reaction. Grace had come up shortly before I left for detention and both her and Lily agreed that Sirius would forgive me, if I 'did the sensible thing and sucked it up and told him the bloody truth already' to quote a very frustrated Lily, who was sick of all my 'what ifs.' Gracie also took the opportunity to tell me not to 'antagonize' him because of my 'stupid pride.' Honestly. Such great friends I have.

I knocked on McGonagall's door, walking in as she called, 'Come in, Ms. Hale.'

How did she know it was me? Does she have some sort of 'I can see through walls' kind of superpower? If she did that would be pretty cool, her superhero name would be something like 'Minnie McBadass, slayer of snakes and protector of the weak'. I smiled briefly, entertaining the notion of McGonagall being Cat Woman or something, seeings as her animagus form was a cat.

Then it clicked. Sirius was already there, seated on the chair by her desk, which is how she knew it was me. I rolled my eyes at my own stupidity and sat down next to him, about ready to tell him all about my idiocy when I realized we still weren't speaking. Not only that, but he wasn't even looking at me. I felt a stab of hurt slice through me. It's funny how much you take for granted and think you could easily live without, and how much you need them once they are gone.

Stonily we both sat through her lecture in silence, by the end of it I couldn't even remember what she had been saying, I'd been too busy looking out her window.

"Ms. Hale, do you understand?"

I looked up from my day dreaming as I slowly became aware that she was speaking to me, I nodded in acknowledgement to her question even though I didn't have the faintest idea what she was on about.

Sirius started standing up and muttered so quietly I almost didn't hear it, for me to follow him.

Filch was waiting for us, apparently we were to clean the trophy room. Joy. Note the sarcasm.

The tension was building up as we entered the trophy room, Sirius and I stood a good distance apart from each other so there was no eyes contact, no accidental touching of hands, no talking, no nothing. Just a very very awkward silence. Filch had left us with a mop, buckets of water and several sponges. I had that familiar bubble in my chest, where you know something has to be said and the longer you go without saying something the bigger bubble gets. Right now, with only the sound of our scrubbing the seemingly never cleaned trophies, the eerie silence had made this bubble the size of a balloon.

I frantically scrounged around for things to say, my mind on overdrive. What could I say? it's only been one day but I think you might be my best friend and I want you back? I miss you? I'm sorry? Forgive me? I'll tell you everything? I need you?

But none of those came out. Instead, there seemed to be some sort of error in communication between my brain and my mouth, because I (very stupidly) said, 'How's Marlene?'

I didn't like Marlene much, it wasn't that she wasn't nice, it was just that we never seemed to get along. She was stubborn, she could be hot headed, and she was relatively smart contrary to the popular blonde bimbo opinion. She'd lost her parents when she was young, or so Lily had told me, and I suppose we were a little too similar for my liking. It seemed the only people who didn't have family issues of some sort in our dorm was Grace and Mary. Although she dealt with hers by trying to be Miss Popularity while I preferred to keep to myself.

He seemed irritated by my question, apparently it takes more than a day and a very tense silence to fix an argument. "What?"

I shrugged nonchalantly and continued looking straight ahead, as it was in the evening we were allowed Muggle clothes so my hands were tucked in my jean pockets behind me.

"Nothing, it's just I saw you with Marlene earlier today and wondered how she was. You two looked quite cozy, I figured you'd know better than I do."

He looked at me, with steel in his eyes, "Oh I wouldn't know, there seems to be a lot of things about people that I thought I knew but turns out I didn't. I wouldn't want to make the same mistake again and assume that Marlene, being the friend that she is, would tell me how she is feeling. Why should she? I mean I obviously have no right to ask."

There was scorn in his voice, and it occurred to me that maybe he didn't like being abandoned either, he didn't like being shut out and he dealt with his hurt by being angry.

The rational part of me just wanted to get on my knees and beg for forgiveness, as dramatic as that seems, but the majority of my brain was just annoyed. Annoyed that I couldn't have my secrets, annoyed that Sirius somehow knew I had secrets, annoyed that he got me detention; annoyed that he saved my arse in Transfiguration and annoyed at how much I needed him, annoyed at his snarky comments and just annoyed at everything, right down to hating my father for leaving me, by Grandfather for shipping me off and my brother for ignoring me for the past five years. Most of my annoyance was completely irrational and I knew that, but I really didn't care. I hadn't noticed the weight on my chest, or the loneliness that had been left behind until now. Naturally, I snapped.

"Yeah, I thought I knew my friend, you see we both kind of had similar backgrounds, and I thought he would understand that I wasn't ready to talk. Obviously, I was wrong, because i stead of understanding, out of no where he just decides to fly of the handle and accuse me of pushing people away!" I replied snarkily, rising to the bait.

"Really? Did you ever think that maybe the friend would have understood that you didn't want to talk of maybe, just maybe, you had used those communications skills of yours and told him, he would have understood? Or was he just supposed to guess that your ridiculous about the view from the bathroom implied that? Maybe, this friend was worried about you, and maybe, he was just sick of you shutting him down every time he tried to help you!" He glared at me from across the room, his voice steadily rising. I seethed openly.

"It was obvious! One doesn't randomly start talking about the view unless they are trying to divert the attention from something else! And you know. If he was so worried about me, he should have been supportive and should have known not to pry! Can't a girl have a secret anymore without some nosy git sticking his nose where it's not wanted?" I glared at him, crossing my arms over my chest making no attempt to hide my anger. I looked him right in the eye defiantly as he stepped closer to me so we were almost nose to nose.

"Numbing the pain for a while will only make it worse when you finally feel it, Zanna. Stop ignoring the problem. I don't know what was in that letter, I don't know why you are so upset, all I know is that forgetting the problem does nothing but make it worse," he hissed, sounding less angry then he had before.

We glared at each other, he had back me against the wall and placed his arms on either side of my chest, resting his palms against the wall effectively trapping me.

His eyes were a hurricane, all dark grey and silver clouds swirling around and around like a storm. They were ice cold, like there was hail and rain and thunder amidst the clouds. He was angry, that much I could tell. Occasionally something else that flickered through his eyes, like lightening but it was quickly obscured. I knew I'd hurt him by brushing him off.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before pulling the letter out from my pocket.

"Here."

He looked at me quizzically, his eyes softening as both his and my anger ebbed away, the storm was dying down. He took it from me, slowly unfolding it, never breaking eye contact.

I bit my lip, waiting for his response. All my defensive anger had faded away when I finally accepted that Sirius was right about ignoring problems making them worse.

Eventually he spoke, "This Alexei the same Alexei who hasn't spoken to you in over five years? The estranged brother?"

I nodded.

"And you don't want to see him because...why?" He asked curiously, raising an eyebrow. I slumped down the wall. Sirius came and set next me, casually resting his arms on his raised up knees

For a while nether of us spoke. Heavy silences seemed to be a trademark of ours.

It was a good question. If you had the chance to see your brother again after five years would you take it? Knowing he left you alone and vulnerable when he was supposed to make you feel safe and loved, knowing that if he had been there, when those men came and everything changed, it could have been different? Knowing that it wasn't hard for him to visit her at their Grandfathers house, knowing it wasn't hard to send a letter or make a floo call. Knowing that he abandoned you... I thought about it all.

Then finally, in a very small voice, I said, "Because I don't want to be left alone again."

I didn't have to elaborate with Sirius, he already knew what I meant. It was the same for him, with Regulus. If Regulus came running to Sirius he'd probably turn him away because the notion of getting someone back just isn't worth the pain if they leave you again.

He pulled me into his side, put his arm around my waist and I rested my head on his shoulder.

We stayed like that for the rest of detention, until Filch came and gave us another one tomorrow night for not finishing cleaning tonight.

For the first time in a while, we just looked at each other, and laughed as we made our way to the common room, his arm over my shoulder, my arm around his waist.

My best friend was back.


	11. Chapter 11

"Zanna, get your lazy arse out of bed this instant or else." Lily's voice floated in one ear and out the other, my brain not fully registering what it was she had said. I groaned and buried my face in my pillow and attempted to go back to sleep.

"Zanna." Lily's voice held traces of impatience. She huffed in annoyance. I could feel her glare burning into the back of my head. In response I snuggled deeper into my pillows.

"Dear Merlin, Zanna. I thought Grace was the lazy one among us. It's past nine o'clock! Just because it's a saturday doesn't mean you can sleep in."

I made no response. I heard Lily stamp her foot in frustration.

"Argh! Why are you so annoying?"

I rolled over slightly so I could face her, "Lils, I don't care if the world is ending. I just want my sleep. Can I have it please?" I asked, not bothering to be polite.

"Fine! Don't blame me when the rest of this lazy tower wakes up and sees your underwear hanging up in the common room!"

That woke me up. I sat up in the bed, "Excuse me? What was that about my underwear in the common room?"

She looked at me with an amused smirk on her face, "Oh, it may or may not be hanging up for all to see..."

I looked at Lily with a horrified expression. "My underwear is hanging up in the common room?" I said weakly, not fully comprehending the situation.

Her smirk grew. "That is what I said."

I turned to Grace pleadingly, "Please, you don't lie, tell me Lily's lying."

She giggled. "Sorry Zanna, I'm afraid it's true. It's still early...I mean only about half the tower is awake...if you hurry you can prevent the other half from seeing."

I was out the door in a flash, not caring that I was still in my pyjamas - an oversized T-shirt and shorts.

Sirius looked up as I came down the stairs. "Morning, Zanna. I hope you slept well? No visitors in the night or anything like that?" He smirked.

I growled as I saw a string with underwear on it across the common room. "Sirius sodding Black, care to explain what the hell you think you are doing?"

He looked at me innocently and shrugged. I looked around, Remus was sitting on one of the chairs, his face seemingly torn between amusement and disapproval, James was leaning against the wall outright smirking and Peter just looked confused.

"I thought Sirius's middle name was Lee?" He asked, his brow furrowed slightly. He actually looked kind of adorable just then, his pudgy face and honest confusion making him look a lot younger than fourteen.

James snorted loudly, Remus shook his head and Sirius winked.

"It is, Pete, my name is Sirius Lee Black. Zanna just got a tad confused when she called me 'Sirius Sodding Black.'"

A wave of understanding washed over Peter's face.

"Ohhh, that makes sense. Zanna being new and everything she must have forgotten your name." He nodded his head. I looked between Sirius and Peter in utter disbelief. How could anyone be so gulliable?

"Hey, Pads?"

"Yeah, Pete?"

"Maybe you ought to like, I dunno, stand up an make an official announcement or something. Just so no one here-" he gestured to the small crowd in the common room who were all busy minding their own business, "-don't actually think your name is Sirius Sodding Black and call you that by mistake."

James was in outright hysterics by now, he'd slipped down the wall he was leaning on to sit on the floor. Remus had almost fallen off his chair he was laughing so hard.

Sirius looked thoughtful. I opened my mouth to bring the topic back to the issue at hand - that being what the hell my underwear was doing strung up in the common room -when he suddenly smirked and winked at me.

I paled. I knew that look, it meant trouble with a capital T. Big Trouble.

"Why Pete, I do believe I ought to get up on a table to make this declaration, don't you think?" Peter nodded enthusiastically.

I watched him curiously. Lily and Grace had come downstairs by this point to see what was going on.

Sirius stood up on the table and cleared his throat, magnifying his voice with a charm.

"Ladies and gentleman of Gryffindor tower," he started.

Lily nudged me in the ribs, "What's he doing?"

"Sirius is making an official declaration."

"What?"

"Apparently Sirius has Peter convinced that his middle name is Lee, and now he plans to tell the whole common room to 'avoid confusion'."

"'Avoid confusion'? What's that supposed to mean?" They still looked confused.

"I called Sirius, 'Sirius sodding Black' and Peter thinks that because I haven't known him very long I've forgotten his name and so no one else forgets his name Sirius is telling everyone what his middle name is." A small grin curled at the corners of my lips.

"My dear friend here, Peter, was starting to worry that none of you knew my middle name and had taken to calling me Sirius 'sodding' Black." Sirius stood on the table, a smirk on his face. Lily, Grace and I snickered. "Now, to reassure Pete I decided I ought to make an announcement. My name is 'Sirius Lee Black, and don't you forget it!"

Those in the crowd who got the joke laughed. James had tears streaming down his face. I zoned out,

Lily snickered beside me. "You realise that Sirius's big announcement is drawing attention to your underwear right?"

I turned my attention back to Sirius.

"...and now you might be wondering why there is a string of underwear hanging from the roof of the common room and who it belongs too, let me start by telling you that it's there because my dear friend Z-"

There was no way I could let him finish that sentence. I jumped up on the table and grabbed him by the arm and dragged him out of the common room by the ear, much to to the confusion of everyone still in the room.

"Ow," he whined as we stood in the hallway by the portrait of the fat lady. "What was that for?"

I scowled. "You know what for."

He rearranged his face into something vaguely resembling an 'innocent' expression. i didn't buy it.

"No, I don't know '_what for_'. Care to enlighten me?"

I punched him in the arm. He yelped and glared at me.

"I don't appreciate having my underwear strung up in the common room for all to see, and I really don't appreciate you telling everybody it's mine!"

His lips twitched. "Well, sweetheart, I don't appreciate being dragged out of the room by my ear- they're very sensitive you know-" I opened my mouth to retort but he covered my mouth with his hand. "I also don't appreciate being punched in the arm. Anyway, you lost the sack race remember?"

"That was unfair!" I cried. "You cheated on that!"

His little smirk as he shrugged innocently gave it all away. I punched him again and stalked back in inside to surreptitiously rescue my underwear.

Red faces, I pulled my knickers down, one by one and laid them over my arm, ignoring the snickers of those who were in the room.

"You know you could just use accio right?" Sirius said from behind me.

"Sirius Lee," I said, noticing Peter proudly nodding as he apparently thought he had corrected the error of my ways regarding Sirius' name, when in actuality I was just doing it to mock him, "If you don't get out of my sight right now, I will transfigure you into a pig and give you to the house elves to cook for dinner."

He smirked, "Now, sweetheart, you look very threatening I'll give you that, but there is two problems with what you just said."

I raised my eyebrow. "Oh really?"

"Mmm hmm."

"Care to share?"

"Not until you fall on your knees and grove, for forgiveness."

"Not going to happen."

"Damn. Will you buy me a life's supply of chocolate?"

"You've got a trust fund, use it."

"Can't, Mumsy dearest froze it."

"Shame."

"Yeah."

We were silent for a moment. He looked down and saw my underwear, bra's included, draped over my arm and flushed. I was awkwardly standing there with my underwear over my arm, while he avoided my gaze and stuffed his hands in his pockets. I cleared my throat.

"Now either tell me what the two problems were or leave."

He regained his composure. "My, my, impatient today, are we?"

"Do I have to punch you again? I can make it hurt. A lot."

He sighed dramatically. "Fine, fine. The first, dear Zanna, is that you don't have the stomach to eat me for dinner."

Someone coughed in the background.

"Second?"

He glared at me. "I'm getting to that, don't get your knickers in a twist."

"Well that's easy considering I'm holding them."

He groaned. I smirked.

"What?" I said innocently. "You brought it up. I thought you'd be familiar with girl's underwear, rumour has it you've been busy, Mr. Black."

He groaned again. "One, how did we get so off topic? And two, you know those rumours are all lies. I haven't been with a girl long enough to get her knickers off."

This time it was me who groaned. "Urgh, Sirius, I did not need that mental image!"

He laughed. "Anyway, the second point was, while you are rather talented at Transfiguration, you couldn't turn me into a pig."

"Wanna bet? I'll bet I could."

"I bet you couldn't."

"Well, that'll be your loss when you're roasting over the fire as a pig becoming pork chops for tea."

"Yeah...you know what? I don't like those odds."

"And like the chicken you are, you called off the bet. Shame."

"Did someone say bet?"

"I love bets. Especially when it's these two. Don't you agree, Fab?"

"Yeah, Gid. These two always have entertaining and utterly ridiculous bets."

"Fabian! Gideon! Look whose finally out of bed!"

I groaned. The last thing I needed was for these two to ask why I was holding all my underwear.

Fabian raised an eyebrow. "Donating to charity then, Zanna?"

Sirius and I looked at him, confused. Gideon chuckled.

"It's okay, Sirius, we all know how badly you want to be a girl. Don't deny it. It's very kind of Zanna to donate some of her underwear to the less fortunate."

Sirius spluttered.

"It's true," James had come over to join the party. "He said to me the other day, you know what James? I wish I'd be born a girl. I think he'd make a pretty good one, don't you?"

I grinned. "We can call him Siriette."

Fabian laughed. "Or Sirielle."

Sirius looked horrified, his face getting redder and redder. I held back a giggle.

"But that sounds so much like cereal, the breakfast food," James mused.

"Siriette...Sirielle...Sirietta? Siriella? Or how about just Siri?"

We all mused quietly for a moment. Sirius almost had steam coming out his ears.

"I like Sirelle."

"I agree."

"I second that motion."

"James, you git, that would be thirding the motion."

"Oh really, and how would you know, Oh Queen of the Universe?"

"Well duh, because you were the third person to agree!"

"Oh."

"So, all in favour of Sirelle?"

A chorus of 'aye's' sounded.

"I do not want to be a girl!" Sirius cried.

I smirked. "Something wrong with being a girl, Siriette? Think about it, you can finally be with Remus! We all know he's straight as a pin, so he wouldn't go for Sirius, but who knows? A little make up, some hair extensions, maybe I'll lend you a bra. We can stuff it with tissues, and voila! Siriette is born! Think about it, Remus and Siriette, together forever! The quiet boy and the damaged girl; riding off into the sunset. Oh thats such a cute love story."

"What's a cute love story?" Remus asked curiously. James jumped up with excitement.

"Remus! We were just talking about Sirius wanting to be a girl, and so we now call her Siriette and Zanna thinks you and Siriette would be the perfect couple."

Remus snorted. Fabain, Gideon and I all nodded our approval.

"Hey!" Sirius yelled, his tone more than just a little annoyed. Naturally, we all ignored him.

"Sirielle, love, you look constipated. Are you all right?" Fabian asked innocently.

I peered closer to his face. "She actually looks like he has steam coming out her ears. Maybe some alone time with her dear Remus will cheer her up." I waggled my eyebrows seductively.

Sirius looked about ready to be sick. "If I were a girl, it would mean having monthly...things and having to wear one of those horrible contraptions that you call bra's and having all that hair all the time and don't even get me started just urgh.

I raised my eyebrows. "Siri, darling, it's called a period." I leaned forward conspiratorially so only he could hear. "Who knows? Maybe you and Remus will even get in sync." He choked. I smirked.

Remus by this point was nearly crying with laughter. James actually had tears coming out his eyes and Fabian and Gideon were on the floor.

"Zanna," Sirius said cooly, "you had better start running or merlin knows it will be you roasting over that fire."

I squealed and jumped over the couch, laughing as he chased me around the common room. Sometime ago, I think Lily had kindly taken my underwear off me and taken it upstairs.

He reached for me but missed and ended up falling flat on his face. I giggled, adrenaline rushing through my veins as my breathing steadied.

It was a stale mate, he was on one side of the table and I was on the other. He moved, I moved. We were seemingly equal.

There was a crash in the background and I turned to see what it was. By the time I'd turned back around he was closing in. I screeched again and took off. However I didn't make it very far.

Strong arms grabbed me around the waist, pulling me close against him and he threw me on the couch.

Sirius began tickling me, I couldn't stop laughing. I had tears running down my face.

"Stop it! Merlin, Sirius, stop!" I said in-between laughs.

"Never!" He cried dramatically. "I must restore my honour."

"What honour?"

He waggled a finger at me teasingly, using the other hand to pin me down. I probably could have escaped if I wanted too. "Watch it, Zanna. Beg me for mercy!"

I giggled. "No! Sirielle and Remus forever!"

He brought his face right down to mine, grey eyes met blue. I grinned. He had let go of one of my hands, so I used it to poke him in the side of his stomach where I knew he was ticklish. He jumped back in surprise, giggling I jumped off the couch and tried to make a run for it again.

I turned around, but couldn't see him. As I turned to fave the front again, I slammed right into him.

He looped one arm under my shoulder, and the other around my waist and he picked me up.

"What are you doing, you big prat! Put me down!" I cried, half laughing still.

"Not until you stop this Sirielle nonsense!"

I was laughing so hard now. "Okay, okay. You don't want to be a girl. That's understandable, it's not so great anyway. But for the record, I still think Sirielle and Remus would have made a cute couple."

He groaned. "Promise me that we will never to speak of this again and I will put you down."

I considered. Being in his arms was quite nice actually. Warm and safe. Like home.

"If 'this' includes the unfortunate incident with my underwear then you have a deal."

He looked down at me, a mischievous smile playing on his handsome face.

"Deal."

And with that, he threw me onto the couch and collapsed down beside me.

He rested his head on my lap and stretched out over the couch.

I rolled my eyes. "Lazy prat."

He grinned. "You love me."

"Twit."

"Twat."

"Prat."

"Dollophead."

"Dollophead?"

"Yes, dollophead."

"Fine, clotpole."

"Really? Is that the best you can come up with?"

"Oh, sweetheart, you don't know the half of it."

I giggled as his eyes began to close, even though it wasn't even lunch time yet.

"Night, Sirielle."

"Night, underwear girl."

* * *

**A/N**

Heh, should I be running from an angry mob who wish to murder me for not updating sooner?

This is unbeta'd as no one seems to ever be around when I need them to beta, I apologize for any errors.

I want to send out loads of love to everyone that has reviewed. **I've nearly hit 100! **I especially want to thank the Guest reviewer, **_Ali_**, who told me she read this twice, and reviewed multiple times. Your reviews just made me smile so much.

I made a tumblr, .com, and it has some whaddya call them, face claims? Pictures of people who I think best suit the characters. Also, if you have any questions you can ask me there. I'll also post updates about the new chapter.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, it was just under 3000 words and its a filler, but nothing major ie happening in the plot for a little while so I felt like writing fluff. I haven't written fluff in ages.

If you have any requests for next chapter, e.g. You want to see some Diana Potter, or maybe you want a more serious one, then just leave it in a review.

**Also! Do you like the cover art? (Do you want to make a better one?)**

Anyway, thank you readers, please leave a review! They make my day.

_Ily_,

Liza.


	12. Chapter 12

"Urgh please tell me we have a double free and not double Transfiguration this morning," I groaned, burying my head in my hands. Grace patted my back sympathetically. Lily just laughed.

"I hate to break it to you, Ms. Hale, but you do indeed have double transfiguration this morning, and unless you wish to lose house points for being late I suggest you and your friends get a move on." McGonagall's charming voice came from behind me. I lifted my head up to look at her.

"It's too early for this," I whined thinking she had already moved on, banging my head on the table again.

"Is there something wrong with my class, Ms. Hale? If you are finding it too challenging I can always find more work for you to do to help you improve." Apparently she hadn't left and had heard what I said. I could picture her raising her eyebrow as she spoke. I flushed and bit my lip as I turned round to look at her.

"Uh, no Professor, I'm fine, thank you. You're class is brilliant, absolutely wonderful, honest! I just didn't want to go today because, you know, it's Monday morning and it's really early and um..." I trailed off, my face reddening as I realize I was babbling. I saw Lily's lips curl out of the corner of my eye and resisted the urge to elbow her in the ribs. Grace was trying her hardest not to laugh, she had stuffed a piece of toast in her mouth to try and make herself not laugh.

Professor McGonagall raised her eyebrows.

"Minnie!" The sound of Sirius's voice had never made me so relieved.

She sighed. "Detention, Black."

He pouted. "Aww, but Minnie! I still have a month's detention for putting underwear on public display in the common room. DOn't you think it's too early to be giving out detentions? Especially to your star pupil?" He pulled his best puppy dog eyes.

I swear I saw the corners of her mouth twitch, just a little. However

"If you don't watch it, Black, I'll make it two months."

"I knew it! You find me irresistible, and you just love spending time with me which is why you give me detention all the time. Aww, Minnie, it's so sweet that you care."

He flashed her a charming smile and winked.

"Two months."

"Oh how I look forward to spending so much time with you, Professor! Two months worth of you, and me and every evening after school. I think James might be jealous, he can be quite territorial you know."

"You will be serving detention with Filch."

"Aww but Professor, I wanted to spend some quality time with my favourite teacher! How can I do that with Filch? He hates me!"

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Mr. Black. Two and a half months."

He pouted, and muttered something like, 'Damn you, James.'

She raised her other eyebrow.

"Where is Mr. Potter? It is so rare to find you two separated. He won't be joining you in detention I hope?"

Sirius grinned mischievously. I wondered if they had something planned and Sirius was covering for James, or if Sirius just loved getting detention. Most likely the latter.

"I'm afraid I cannot disclose the location of everyone's favourite Mr. Potter. He's in such high demand, you see, and it would be unfair to those who I haven't told yet, if I told you first."

If it was even possible, her eyebrows rose higher. I snickered quietly.

"Is that so?"

Sirius nodded. "Mmnhmm, well Professor we'd best be off. Wouldn't want to be late to Transfiguration now would we?" He winked and sauntered off to class. Bemusedly, the rest of us followed, leaving McGonagall behind shaking her head.

* * *

"Wands out, please." Professor McGonagall's shrill voice resonated around the classroom. "Today, we are doing the vanishing spell. Your aim is to vanish the snail you will find on your desk."

She went on, giving a demonstration and the incantation.

"Off you go, ten points to the first person who finishes."

"Urgh it's far too early for this," I groaned.

Sirius smirked. "Don't let McGonagall hear that, she swore to put you in detention if she ever heard you complain about Transfiguration. Then again you'd be with me, so how bad could it be?"

I snorted. "Sure, scrubbing floors with Sirius Black, what fun!"

He pouted. "No need to be so sarcastic, Zanna."

I zoned out as we went back to work, trying to vanish the snail.

A group of girls sitting behind me started gossiping about Sirius.

"What do you think Sirius would be like in bed?"

"Ooh I heard he's heavenly. An excellent snogger too!"

"Oh how I'd like to see beneath his pants!"

They giggled. I had to resist the urge to absolutely murder them.

Sirius must have seen me clench my fists, for he smirked. "Not jealous of a few giggly girls are we?"

I glared at him.

I muttered the spell, pointing my wand at the snail, still thinking about those irritating girls. I was _not _jealous. I frowned when it didn't vanish.

A yell sounded from next to me, accompanied by some giggles. Looking over, I saw a furious Sirius standing in only his underwear, looking absolutely furious.

"Padfoot, mate, trying out a new look?" James called from across the room. Remus rolled his eyes. "Personally, I think it looks absolutely wonderful, you should walk around trouser-less all the time!"

A few people catcalled. Sirius's glare intensified.

"Zanna, did you just vanish my trousers?"

James started laughing. "Zanna did it? Oh that's brilliant. If you were that eager to see him in his underwear you could have just asked, Padfoot probably would've said yes."

Remus snickered.

"Zanna, unvanish them this instant!"

I threw my hands up, "What makes you think I did this?"

He scowled. "Who else could have done it? You were sitting right next to me!"

Oops. Apparently thinking about Sirius's trousers while trying to vanish a mouse resulted in Sirius losing his trousers.

I grinned sheepishly. "Sorry, I was just that desperate to see you trouser less that I accidentally on purpose vanished them. You're right, it was me. I admit it."

He didn't appreciate my teasing.

"Can you give me back by trousers now?"

I flushed slightly. "Err, well, here's the thing...I don't know how."

I was saved from Sirius wrath by the presence of McGonagall.

"What on earth? Where are your trousers, Mr. Black?" Her voice held traces of humour, disbelief and incredulity.

"Zanna," he glared pointedly at me, "vanished them."

I held back a giggle and tried to look reproachful. She sighed.

"I don't want to know what you were thinking about in order to vanish Mr. Black's trousers, of all things, Ms. Hale. Do watch your thoughts next time."

My flush deepened. "Right, sorry, Professor." She shook her head in disbelief before flicking her wand, returning his trousers and walking off.

"I cannot believe you did that," he growled.

"Sorry! It was an accident!"

"What on earth were you thinking about?"

"Um..." I blushed.

He stared at me. "Save it! I don't think I want to know."

I blushed as I realised what he was implying. "No! It wasn't like that I swear! I was just thinking about how much those girls were annoying me and somehow that translated to your trousers being vanished."

It was a pathetic excuse. He looked at me again and shook his head, this time a small smile played on his lips.

"Berk."

"Arse."

"Twit."

"Twat."

"Are we really going to to through all this again? Tosser."

"Yes. Git.

"Git? Really? Prat."

"Yes, really. Trouser vanisher."

"Are you ever going to let that go?"

"Never."

He grinned at me, we continued bantering until Remus turned around and told us to shut the hell up before he put us both in detention.

* * *

Walking back from transfiguration was a trip none of us would never forget.

"I still can't believe you vanished Sirius's pants!" James, who was walking on my left, howled with laughter. Sirius was scowling on my other side. Grace, Lily and Remus were walking a bit further behind us.

"It wasn't that funny, get over it," Sirius growled. James grinned.

"Stop sulking, Padfoot, it's really not an attractive look on you."

I bit back a laugh. Sirius already wasn't happy with me, and I didn't need to make it worse.

"I already said I was sorry, Sirius. Then again, you can consider it payback for what you did to me."

He turned to glare at me, and shoved me slightly.

"Oh real mature, Sirius. Pushing people is always the best solution to wounded pride, right?" I saw his lips twitch just a bit as I teased him.

This time I did laugh as I fell into James, who caught me and steadied himself so neither of us fell over.

"Oof, bloody hell, Zanna! What have you been eating! Rocks? You weigh a ton!" James joked.

I pouted, pretending to be insulted. "Are you calling me fat?"

In return, James pushed me into Sirius.

I yelped. "What was that for?"

Sirius's arms caught me around the waist. I definitely didn't mind the tingle that shot up my spine from holding me. Not that I liked him or anything, I mean he's my best friend, but when a guy as hot as Sirius (okay yes, I'll admit it, he is very attractive, not that I'd ever tell him that) is holding you, you don't complain.

"Please don't ever act like one of those annoying, dramatic, girly girls that constantly gossip, bitch and have fights over who is more beautiful, or I will have to murder you."

Dramatically, Sirius was still holding me, I put my hand to my forehead in my best imitation of those slaggy clique girls and said in a really high pitched voice, "Oh, Sirius, save me from James! He wants to murder me! Please! I'm more beautiful than him and he can't handle it! Save me!"

James groaned and slapped his hand to his forehead.

Laughing, Sirius dropped me so I landed on the ground on my butt.

"Oof," I said, scowling at Sirius.

"Sorry, Zan, I think I have to agree with James on this one. You're more trouble than you're worth. For the record, I'm the most beautiful of us all." He winked.

"Oof, meanie. Maybe Sirielle and James should have a thing going on, instead of Sirielle and Remus," I teased.

Now it was his turn to scowl.

"You swore you wouldn't speak of that!"

James cut it before I could respond."Honestly, would you two just quit flirting already and just snog? Bloody hell."

Sirius and I both rolled our eyes. I accepted the hand he held out to pull me up.

Suddenly James's face turned somber.

"Did you guys hear that?"

We looked at James, confused and shook out heads.

"Listen."

A faint scream, mingled with a sob was just audible from one of the corridors.

We all look at each other, faces pale, and ran towards the sound. The screams got louder.

Finally we arrived, out of breath, to see what was going on. The sight before my eyes nearly made me sick. Sirius and James weren't much better.

Marlene was screaming, leaning over a barely recognisable body. It was Mary McDonald, a Muggleborn.

I didn't know if she was dead or alive, judging by the contorted angles of her body, and the red smears everywhere, I highly doubted it.

The three of us huddled close; the warmth from each other's bodies was comforting.

I heard footsteps behind us, and gathered that Remus and the others had arrived.

"What happened?" I whispered hoarsely.

James took charge. "Remus, Evans, you're both prefects. One of you go fetch Dumbledore, or McGonagall if you can't reach him. The other go and get Madame Pomfrey. We'll wait here with Marlene."

James taking charge surprised me; I'd never seen him so responsible.

James took one look at Grace's ashen face- she wasn't good with blood- and ordered her to go with Remus to Madame Pomfery. They nodded and left.

Sirius put his arm over my shoulder and pulled me into his side. I was grateful for the comfort, I wasn't sure if it was for him, me, or us both. Either way I didn't care.

Peter hovered around awkwardly. "Someone should go sit with Marlene," he said quietly.

All three of the boys looked at me. My eyes widened.

"What are you looking at me for?" I hissed.

They shrugged. "You're a girl," James said. I punched him in the shoulder.

"So?"

"So I'm sure Marlene would rather you, than one of us. Plus aren't girls meant to be better at the whole sensitive thing?"

I scowled. The part about Marlene being more comfortable with me, than with one of the boys, in this situation actually made sense. The only problem was I was terrible with crying people.

I disentangled myself from Sirius, and made my way over to Marlene.

I had no idea what to say, so I said nothing, I just sat there, hoping that my presence wouldn't make things worse. We didn't normally get along.

She continued to cry, her hands were covered in Mary's blood. I felt tears spring into my eyes. Mary was a sweet girl. She didn't deserve this.

"What would you know?" Marlene's voice was bitter. Apparently I'd thought aloud.

I bit my lip and shrugged, figuring maybe Marlene needed to vent, and if so I'd let her.

"No one knows! There'll be a funeral, and Dumbledore'll make some speech about her, about how she was brilliant at Herbology, and one of the sweetest people ever, but the thing is that no one really knows her! Why? because she hung around me, Marlene the Slag."

Her voice was bitter and thick with tears. I must've look shocked because she continued.

"Yes, I know what people think of me. Because I've had a few boyfriends people spread rumours. They make up lies. Call me thing like Marlene the Slag, and loose, when in reality I've only had two boyfriends, yet for some reason people think that because my elder sister was a slut, that I must be too! I admit, I've snogged a lot of guys, but why should that make me a slag? And Mary-" she choked on the name. "Mary stood by me, the whole time. People hated her for it. Called her names too. No one ever gave her a chance, because she was my friend. I never ever thanked her for staying, for not leaving when being seen with me made her life hell. Now she's dead."

Marlene started to cry into my shoulder. We were in an awkward hugging position, so I rubbed her back gently, the way my mother would when I was a child and was hurt.

As she sobbed, I started to reconsider everything I'd ever thought about Marlene. I'd heard the rumours that she was easy, I figured it was true, with the way she sometime flirted with Sirius and other guys. I never considered that they were false. Neither Lily nor Grace had a high opinion of her either. She'd been a bitch to all of us, but now I understood why. When you've been torn down as much as Marlene has, putting on the tough exterior was a protective mechanism.

Another girl came, Dorcas Meadowes from Hufflepuff, and swapped places with me. She was Marlene's only other friend.

"I'm sorry for your loss," I said quietly as I left. "And I'm sorry for judging you."

I don't know if Marlene heard me or not, but Dorcas nodded slightly.

Sirius hugged me as soon as I walked over. I had tears streaming down my face, and I knew I must have looked like a ghost I was that pale. James rubbed my back and it became like a little group huddle thing. Each of us turning to each other for comfort. Peter had gone to see where the others were.

"This is horrible," I whispered into Sirius's shoulder, turning my head slightly so I could see them both. I was unable to fully comprehend what was happening. A girl was dead, at Hogwarts, at my own home, and the home of many others. An innocent girl, killed. Tortured. Probably raped.

"Who would do such a thing?" James's voice was hoarse. I felt Sirius's arms tighten around me and I buried by head in the crook of his neck. He rested his chin on my head.

"Voldemort."

Sirius said the name so quietly, and with so much hatred and disgust. I almost didn't hear him.

I didn't really know who he was, I'd heard about him of course in the Daily Prophet, but aside from that I didn't know much.

"He's a dickhead who preaches Pureblood supremacy; he goes around torturing Muggles and killing Muggleborns. I think my cousin, Bellatrix, would have to be his biggest fan. My whole family worships him." The bitterness in his voice was unmistakable.

"But why would he kill Mary?" James asked.

"Marlene said it was because she is-was-a muggleborn," I said. I felt Sirius nod.

"He as these supporters called Death Eater, no doubt half of Slytherin are members. They would have done it."

"Sirius," James's voice was unusually hesitant. "Is-is your brother..." He trailed off, biting his lip. I felt Sirius go tense.

"Is Regulus a Death Eater? Probably, I wouldn't be surprised." I was shocked by the bitterness in his voice. I knew relations with his family were bad, but not this bad. I hugged him harder.

"Do you think he-"

This time Sirius cut him off. "Tortured and killed Mary? I don't know. Probably. I don't even know what he's capable of anymore." Sirius voice was tight, angry and tense.

James recoiled slightly. Apparently this was a sensitive issue. "I was going to say do you think he knows who did this. You could ask."

Sirius snorted. "What? Just stroll down to the Slytherin common room and ask if my little brother is there, because I just want to ask him a few questions about the murder of Mary McDonald. I'm sure that would go down brilliantly," his voice was heavily laced with sarcasm as he snapped at James.

"Actually," James began, slightly coldly, "I thought we could corner him somewhere and find out what he knows. At the very least you can see how he is. Even if you don't get along, you should still check up on him. If he isn't a Death Eater maybe you can still convince him not to join."

Sirius nodded. "Right, yeah. That would work." It was as close to an apology as he would get. James just joined our hug in response, somehow making this little three way hug comforting instead of awkward. I didn't have the heart to tell him he was squishing me.

Marlene's sobs had quieted down. There was just the soft sound of Dorcas comforting her, other than that it was eerily silent. We had ended up somehow walking away from Mary, I wasn't entirely sure where we were, or how we had got there. I hadn't really been paying attention. All I knew was that we were closer to our transfiguration classroom than to where Mary was. Marlene and Dorcas needed to be able to grieve in peace without us intruding. Somehow, during our shuffle, we had still retained our group hug.

"Ok, I hate to break up the party, but Prongs, mate, you're too bony for a group hug," there was a small trace of humour in Sirius's voice as he poked James in the side to make him get off.

James pouted. "Aww, Padfoot! Zanna still wants me! You'll see!" Sirius had loosened his arms to allow James to exit, meaning as James pulled away he was easily able to pull me out of Sirius's arms and into his side. He hugged me sideways and I giggled a bit. Sirius shook his head.

"Nuh uh, James. This isn't on. No one steals my Zanna and gets away with it!"

It may seem inappropriate to some, to be laughing when a student just died, but there's only so much sadness a person can take before it drags them down and consumes them, leading them to do desperate things. Sirius was coming close to his limit. Knowing that one's family had committed terrible deeds, and then witnessing the results of such deeds is enough to push anyone over the edge.

Seeing Sirius and James play fight and banter back and forth now, to some would be unthinkable, it would be inappropriate and insulting to Mary. However to James and I, Sirius needed the mood lightened. So did I. It may sound mean, but I didn't want to think about Mary. I didn't want to picture Mary because then Mary's contorted and mangled body would change to Lily; then to Grace and James and Sirius, all people who would be considered blood traitors. I couldn't handle that. I was only fifteen, I didn't want to grow up yet, I didn't want to be reminded that there was a war going on. I wanted to fight, I knew they would too, but at the same time I wanted to steal all my friends away and find a nice safe house and live there with them; happy, innocent, safe.

Sirius smiled at me from where he had James in a headlock.

"Zanna, tell James you love me more!"

"No Zanna, you love me more!"

I grinned. "You two are idiots. I love Remus more, obviously."

They both looked at each other in horror.

"This will not do!"

"She can't love Moony more than us!"

"Whatever did we do to deserve such punishment?"

"I bet Sirius did something. Pads, what did you do?"

"I did nothing! I'll bet it was you!"

"Pssht, what in earth could I have done?"

"We should buy her chocolate. Girls like chocolate."

"Or flowers."

"Nah, not flowers. You saw how Evans reacted last year when you sent her a bouquet of daisy's."

"How I was supposed to know she was allergic!"

"I still think you're the reason Zanna loves Moony more than us, Prongs."

"Pfft. Whatever, we all know it was really you."

"It was not!"

"Was too!"

"Was not!"

"Was too!"

"Oh, Prongs. How are we going to survive?"

"I think we might just die."

"I have to agree."

"I still think flowers would work."

"I still think you're an idiot."

"I resent that."

"Good."

I sighed. "You two are so needy."

They grinned. "We know!" They chorused.

"You love us anyway."

"Don't deny it."

I smiled. Sirius put his arm around my waist, and James put his over my shoulder. I leaned my head on Sirius' shoulder and sighed again. The mood turned more somber again.

As much as I would like to have stayed there, in that moment forever, reality called.

"Do you think we should go see if Marlene and Dorcas are all right?"

They both nodded. The smiles slipped off all our faces as we made our way back.

Marlene had fallen asleep on Dorcas's lap.

"Do you need anything? Food? Water? A pillow?" James asked gently.

Dorcas shook her head. We joined her leaning against the wall, all trying to ignore Mary's body as we waited for Dumbledore. It had really only been about ten or fifteen minutes since we left transfiguration, even though it seemed like longer.

Finally Peter and Remus arrived with Madame Pomfrey, Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall. Lily stayed with Grace in the hospital wing. Grace couldn't handle the sight of Mary's body without being sick. I didn't blame her. I buried my head in Sirius's shoulder so I wouldn't have to see their reactions. I thought I heard someone gasp, and the sound of voices murmuring quietly. Sirius rubbed my back soothingly.

"Who discovered Mary's body first?"

"Marlene, then us. We heard Marlene crying and screaming and followed the sound of her voice." James said, his voice hoarse.

"I found her after them, I heard Marlene's crying and saw them running. So I followed them," Dorcas added.

"Did any of you actually see the attack?" Dumbledore asked. We all shook our heads. We'd only found the body.

"Very well. You make go. Please do not mention this to those outside this immediate circle, the last thing we need is the students panicking. Do not hesitate to contact Madame Pomfrey if you need a calming draught or something of the like. You are excused from classes for the rest of the day. Mr. Potter, I presume you know where the kitchens are. If you do not feel like eating in the Great Hall tonight then no one will think any less of you."

We nodded and all got up and headed to the Common Room. We missed double potions with the Slytherins, and double Charms with the Ravenclaws. I was relieved. I don't think I could have managed to look people like Avery or Rosier in the eye, or even be in the same room as them. Their families were notoriously Dark and I wouldn't put it past them.

Dorcas stayed behind so that Madame Pomfrey could get Marlene to the hospital wing. Dumbledore and McGonagall were the only two left.

* * *

That night I couldn't sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night, burying my face in my pillow so I wouldn't scream. I'd had one of my worst nightmares since my mother's death. I dreamed of her death, of men in masks with snakes branded on their left forearms. The dream changed, sometimes they were torturing ten year old me, sometimes they were torturing my mother, but either way my head was filled with screams and cries and pain. The imaged changed to Mary, to blurred faces laughing while they tortured her. Mary changed to Lily, who changed to Sirius, then to Grace, James, Remus even Peter and Marlene. I took deep breaths to try and get myself under control. I looked over and Lily and Grace, somehow both were sleeping peacefully, though I suspected that Madame Pomfrey had given her a sleeping draught.

As not to not wake them up, I decide trying to sleep were futile so I stole downstairs to the Common Room, expecting to find it empty.

"Couldn't sleep either?" Sirius's voice drifted out from the couch where he was lounging. I curled up in the arm chair next to him.

I shook my head, in answer to his question. I stared morosely into the fire. We were silent for a long time. Just taking comfort from each other's presence.

Finally he spoke. "I had a nightmare. I imagined first that I saw Regulus torturing Mary. My baby brother, a killer. It would make my mother's year, you know. If she found out he was torturing Muggle Borns. 'Oh look at Regulus, cleansing the world of vermin and filth!'" He mimicked his mother. I thought I detected a note of jealousy there.

"Then it changed, they were making me torture people. Torture James, Remus, Peter...you. It was awful because in the dream I enjoyed it." He shuddered. I still didn't look at him.

I took a deep breath before finally speaking. "I dreamed of my mothers death, sometimes she was tortures, sometimes me. I don't think I'll ever really know what happened that night. My subconscious enjoys making it up. I dreamed about Mary, and what happened to her happening to all of you and to me as well. I just never believed anything like this would ever happen at Hogwarts. Or to Mary, she was so sweet. She really was. She didn't deserve to die like that."

He shook his head. "No one ever does."

I felt tears burn at the back of my eyes, and I buried by chin in my arms so only a part of my face was visible, so I could still see the fire. The tears streamed silently down my face.

Sometimes I wondered how I got placed in Gryffindor, I was terrified of people getting hurt; of me getting hurt and just generally terrified of the future. What would happen if this Voldemort guy won? Then what?

Sirius's solemn silver eyes met my watery blue ones. "We just have to take it all one step at a time. Wake up, eat breakfast, go to class...try not to worry about the war. It's hard, but what happens if we spend our Hogwarts days constantly in fear? Then we're letting them win. We're showing those slimy Death Eaters that they have power over us, when they don't. We'll make it out okay, you know. I promise."

I couldn't help but think that that was one promise he wouldn't be able to keep, hard as he might try.

* * *

**A/N** Wow, it's been less than a month since my last update. That's gotta be a record. This chapter is nearly 5000 words long. Thats insane. Chapter 13 should be up by the end of July. You'll get to meet Zanna's brother, Aleksander, in that one.

This chapter had some obvious foreshadowing and some more subtle ones. Kudos to those who figure it out!

I really hope you enjoyed this chapter.

There is a tumblr for this! Last chapter the link didn't work but it's ** .com**

Anons can ask questions there, and I have my face-claims there, and I'll post updates there too. If you guys aren't interested in following a tumblr, I'll delete it. I just thought it might be a nice idea.

Please review!

xx

Liza


	13. Chapter 13

"It's nearly the end of November and we haven't brought dresses yet! Beauxbaton and Durmstrang will be here in a week and we need to beat the crowds!"

If there was one thing Grace got excited about, it was fashion.

"When's the Christmas Ball again?"

"You're the prefect, Lily. You ought to know."

Lily rolled her eyes. "Whatever."

"It's on the 23rd of December, that way we can still go home and actually celebrate Christmas eve/day with our families."

"Thank you Grace! See Zanna, it's not hard to be nice once in a while. You should take a page out of Grace's book once in a while."

Now it was my turn to roll my eyes.

"Grace should be a Hufflepuff. I swear she's one of the nicest people in the history of existence."

"You say that like it's an insult. Surely you're not implying that you don't think Grace should be a Gryffindor?" Lily's tone was teasing.

"Am I not good enough to be in your mere presence, O Mighty Susannah Isadora Hale?"

I scowled. "Don't use my full name." I hated Susannah, and Isadora was even worse. I have no idea what was going through my mother's head when she named me. Maybe she was drunk.

"I notice you never refuted the claim that I'm not good enough for you?"

I rolled my eyes again. "Now I see why you and Remus are so good together."

Grace looked slightly confused. Lily laughed.

"Why?" It was like a light bulb had switched on somewhere in her head. "Oh right, it's because I used 'refuted' isn't it?"

Lily and I made eye contact and resisted the urge to laugh.

"Well, yeah kind of. You're both so booky, you know? But then you have these hobbies and stuff that no one would have expected. Like you care so much about fashion, and Remus pranks with his friends. But anyway, you both use those sorts of big words and fancy language like lawyers and you're so intelligent. It's scary sometimes."

Grace rolled her eyes. "So you're saying Remus and I are soulmates because we both speak like lawyers'?"

This time we all made eye contact. The longer we looked at each other the harder it became to resist the urge to  
laugh.

We were dead silent, each biting our lips seeing who would break first.

Eventually it was me. The urge became too much, I couldn't resist it anymore. At first it was just a small sound that escaped my lips, then it became a chuckle and eventually a full blown laugh.

Grace and Lily looked at me strangely for a while as I laughed before finally giving in and joining me. Soon all three of us were just rolling around on the beds in our dorm.

After Mary's death, Dumbledore had naturally given a speech, there had been a funeral although it was only for close friends and family. The ball was a way to lighten the mood, not to forget the tragedy of her death but to stop it weighing us all down. The week after she dies had been incredibly solemn. We had had the following day off timetable, and there was a quick memorial service. This was the first time we'd laughed this much since it happened.

None of us we're great friends with mary, but the dorm still felt strange without her. Seeing her bed stripped, her posters and pictures gone made it feel so...empty. Images of her body appeared in my mind, I forcefully pushed them out. I saw enough of them at night, I didn't need them during the day as well.

Grace saw me looking at Mary's bed and the laughter died down. "Let's go to Hogsmeade shall we? Get the best gowns out of everybody in the whole of Hogwarts. We'll look even more beautiful than those Veela girls at Beauxbaxton. If we're lucky, one of those handsome Durmstrang boys will us ask!"

Lily and I looked at Grace in shock. "You have a boyfriend!" I cried, an incredulous look on my face.

"That doesn't mean I can't look at fit Durmstrang boys. Everyone knows the Beauxbaton boys are gorgeous, but the Durmstrang ones are the best."

My eyes met Lil's and we burst into laughter again. Who knew our sweet little Gracie had it in her?

Still giggling, we linked arms and left the dorms. It was a Hogsmeade weekend after all.

* * *

"You know what, I might just forfeit this Ball...," I started as we walked the streets of Hogsmeade.

Grace gasped. "You can't sit out! There'll most likely never be another one like this! How can you not want to go?"

I threw up hands up in the air as they both sent me accusatory glares. "I hate shopping! We've been walking around this store for hours-"

"-barely ten minutes-"

"-and all we've done is veto dresses. I swear my feet are about to drop off."

Lily rolled her eyes. "You are so dramatic!"

I flashed her a smile. "I try."

Grace shook her head in disbelief. "Go flirt with Sirius for half an hour or something. When you get back, I will have found at least three dresses for you. Also, stop complaining."

I glared at Grace but decided to go for a walk anyway. I figured I could catch up with Sirius and them at the Three Broomsticks, where they were no doubt plotting something.

* * *

I wrapped my scarf tighter around my neck. The wind was blowing and today was colder than usual. I started to regret leaving the shop. It was then that I saw Marlene. She was sitting alone on a bench outside Honeydukes. It occurred to me then that Dorcas had gone home after what happened to Mary, leaving Marlene essentially friendless at Hogwarts. I figured she looked like she could use some company, so I approached her.

She eyed me warily. "Just because I spilled my guts to you after Mary-" she choked up. "-after what happened to her, that doesn't mean we're friends."

I was taken aback by her cold demeanor. It didn't occur to me that maybe she was scared of being left alone, and so choose to isolate herself a to minimise the risk of being hurt.

"Well sorry for thinking that you looked lonely sitting here all by yourself, and sorry for thinking that maybe, just maybe, you'd like to come with me and go dress shopping. You know, before Hogsmeade is swarmed with the Beauxbaton and Durmstrang kids. Next time I see you on your own, I'll just leave you alone to your bitchy ways." I snapped. I was already in a bad mood from the shopping, and the miserable cold, and I really didn't want to put up with her reverting back to how we were before Mary.

I glared at her, my arms crossed over my chest. Turning on my heel, I was about to stalk off and get myself a warm Butterbeer when she called out.

"Wait."

I stopped, but didn't turn around.

She took a deep breath, like saying her next words was going to be a struggle. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap, I just...I don't want people suddenly being nice to me because they pity me, you know? I didn't want you coming up to me and telling me how sorry you are about Mary, and being all polite and everything when you don't really mean it."

I frowned. "I don't pity you. I asked you because you were sitting alone, and you looked lonely. Not because I feel obligated."

She wrinkled up her nose. "FIne. I'll come. But two things first."

I raised my eyebrows expectantly as I turned around.

"One. I want a Butterbeer first."

"And two?"

She smiled, stood up and walked a bit ahead of me before stopping and turning around and looking at me.

"Two, don't think this makes us friends or anything."

I just smiled and shook my head as I followed her to the Three Broomsticks. Marlene was an odd girl, but not at all the bad girl I thought she was.

We walked in a comfortable silence before finally getting a table and ordering our drinks.

"You know, you should be a Hufflepuff."

I nearly spat out my drink in surprise. "What?"

She grinned. "Seriously, you're too nice. Plus you'd look good in black and yellow."

I rolled my eyes. "The sorting hat considered putting me in either Hufflepuff or Gryffindor. I said I wanted Gryffindor because I'd met Lily, Grace, Sirius etc and didn't want to start all over again."

"Ha! My instincts are always right," she paused. "Mary was almost put into Hufflepuff."

Suddenly the warm environment of the Three Broomsticks seemed so much colder. I looked anywhere but at Marlene and shifted uncomfortably in my chair.

Eventually she broke the awkward silence by clearing her throat. "You, ah, said something about dress shopping?"

I nodded, and stood up, getting ready to go. Marlene followed suit.

If Lily and Grace were surprised by me bringing Marlene along, neither of them said anything.

"So, Gracie, have you got my perfect dress picked out yet?"

She smiled with a hint of mischievousness. "I have, actually. However am I right in thinking that Marlene doesn't have a dress yet?"

Marlene nodded.

Grace's smile widened. "Well, then I think we should find her a dress first, don't you agree?"

The first dress Marlene tried on was a sleeveless plum coloured dress, which was tight around the waist then flowy at the bottom. It went well with her pale skin and blonde hair, but it just didn't seem right.

"Hmm," I considered, tilting my head to the side. "Spin around."

She complied. It really was a stunning dress.

"I think you should get something a little bolder," Grace mused. "I'm about to be very blunt here. You just lost your best friend, everyone is going to pity you and and expect you to just break down in tears at any given moment. We need to show everyone that Marlene McKinnon is a Gryffindor for a reason, and that it takes a lot more than this to break her."

"I agree," Lily spoke up. "Something feminine, elegant, yet makes a statement."

A cheeky smile spread slowly across Marlene's face. "What do you have in mind?"

Within the next hour, at least half a dozen different dresses were tried on before we even came close to finding the perfect dress. Eventually it was Marlene who found it.

"Girls, I think I've just found my dress."

It was a tight, red, strapless dress, with lace embroidery covering it. When she tried it on, the vibrant red really accentuated her eyes, and highlighted her curves in all the right places. She looked incredible. Elegant and bold, a true lioness.

* * *

The next day Beauxbaton and Durmstrang were set to arrive.

"Susannah Isadora Hale!"

Before Lily could finish her sentence, Marlene interupted. SInce Hogsmeade, she'd slowly started becoming slightly more intergrated in our group, especially while Dorcas wasn't at school.

-"what do you think you are doing sitting here in the common room in your pyjama's? All the cute boys from Durmstrang-"

"-and Beauxbaton, don't forget them. They rarely get enough love," Grace interjected. Lily shot them both an irriated look.

"-and Beauxbaton, are coming today in only a few hours! How are you not ready yet?"

"Now as I was saying-"

"Wait! Zanna did Lily just call you "Zanna is-a-door Hale?"

Sirius waltzed down the stairs, laughter etched upon his face.

I scowled as he came and sat on the couch next to me. "No, she did not."

Sirius raised his eyebrows. "I am seriously -pun not intended- loving your parents right now for giving you the middle name of is-a-door."

I shoved him back into the couch, glaring. "They did not call me is-a-door!"

He smirked. "Really? It sure sounded like it. Don't worry, sweetheart, my middle name is shite as well."

I folded my arms and scoffed. "Sirius Orion Black. Newsflash, your whole name is shite, not just your middle name."

I flashed him a sweet smile, and he pouted. "Hey! That's not nice. My name is incredible, thank you very much."

"Mmnhmm, I'm sure being called Sirius on a daily basis and making juvenile puns about it would add up to your expectation of incredible. We all know you don't have the brain capacity to be able to handle anything more exciting."

"Well, at least my middle name isn't Is-a-door."

"For the last time, it's not is-a-door! Bloody hell, are you thick?"

"Well you haven't exactly told me what it is. Only what it's not. I can hardly be at fault for your inability to communicate now can I?"

"Stop bickering! Honestly. Can I go back to what I was saying before I was so rudely interupted?"

We both turned our attention towards Lily. She took our silence as consent to keep talking.

"Susannah Isadora-"

"Your middle name is Is-a-dor-a? Well why didn't you just say so?"

Lily let out an annoyed huff and stamped her foot. Someone cleared their throat. It was James

"Ahem, attention ladies and gentlemen, namely Zanna and Sirius, my Lilyflower-"

"-Your Lilyflower?"

"Yes, my Lilyflower wishes to speak. Let her have the floor."

I coughed.

"Let her have the floor?" Sirius had a wicked grin on his face. "Oh Lilyflower, it's already yours. You're standing on it, you see. That hard thing beneath you feet? It's called a floor. I don't know why you had to get James up just to make a public service announcement. He can be really obnoxious in the mornings. Seeings as classes are cancelled due to the arrival of the new schools, I personally believe you should have let him sleep in."

Lily scowled. She didn't appreciate his input. I bit my lip to hold back a laugh.

"Sirius has a point there, you know," Marlene added thoughtfully. "Having spent a summer or two at James's house- our parents are very close friends you know - I can speak from experience and tell you he is a right git when awake before 9am. He once pounded on the bathroom door non-stop shouting my name until I got out. THen he proceeded to walk around like a zombie for the rest of the day."

Sirius sent her a wink.

James cried out in protest. "Hey! That was one time, and you were taking hours. I was perfectly entitled to want my bathroom back."

Marlene opened her mouth the retort.

"QUIET." Lily's yell echoed around the room. She used her 'prefect voice', speaking with such authority that even Sirius stopped talking. No one dared to say anything. She had her hands on her hips and surveyed the room for a few moments, seemingly smug at getting us all to fall silent. "Now, Zanna, as I was saying-"

"Evans, why are you soaking wet?"

If Lily was a Gorgon, Peter would have been turned to stone. Then smashed into little pieces. Multiple times. I winced at the thought. Lily was soaking wet because of me, after all.

Lily took a deep breath, glared at Peter, and then screamed in frustration.

"Zanna," she growled. "Would you like to explain to Peter why I am covered from head to toe in water?"

I bit back a grin. "Um, funny story. See, the other day Lily doused me in water to make me get out of bed, and we all know that I am awful at charms, and while attempting to dry my bed, using the supposedly simple drying charm, as it had also been soaked, I accidentally set my drapes on fire. So this morning, she wouldn't get up, so I just returned the favour."

Peter nodded his head in understanding. "Oh, so, Evans, why didn't you just dry yourself instead of standing here wet? You'll get sick."

Lily stood there, glowering. James did the honours of drying her off.

"Thank you. Now, Zanna, Marlene has a point. In less than two hours the guests are arriving and you still need to shower and get dressed. Well, what are you waiting for! Go, before I spray you with water."

Sirius pushed me off the couch. "Move you big lump, if she sprays you I'll get wet to, and we can't mess up this perfect hair can we?"

"Oh you mean my perfect hair? Thank you, much appreciated," I replied from my new cozy spot on the floor.

"Oh just get moving. You know, I was going to say that I think you look lovely in your doggy pyjamas, but now, I don't think I will."

He crossed his arms over his chest and nudged me with his foot.

I grumbled, but stood up anyway. "See what I mean about juvenile?"

He pouted and gave me one last kick, Lily's Medusa-esque glare followed me all the way up the stairs to the dormitory.

Little did I know, that in just a few hours, I'd be getting the biggest shock of my life.

* * *

Beauxbaton arrived in style, but then again so did Durmstrang. I wandered slowly behind Grace and Lily, who had gone up to the Beauxbaton carriage to admire the horses. Sirius and the other had gone to admire the Durmstrang ship.

"Those are incredible horses, can you imagine how strong they must be to pull these carriages?" Grace observed. We weren't allowed particularly close to the horses, but even with my limited knowledge on them I could see that they were incredibly well bred. Apparently Lily went horse riding in the summer sometimes, so she also was quite knowledgeable on horses. I'd only ever ridden them as a child, and then occasionally at my grandfather's estate. I'd never really bothered to learn much about different breeds and such. Grace and Lily were utterly transfixed with the horses, Marlene and I just stood off to the side.

Marlene nudged me. "Do you want to go? Lunch will be served soon. I hear it's going to be quite a feast. Those two aren't going anywhere anytime soon."

I nodded. I was about to turn around and follow her when Grace and Lily called out to me. Marlene paused and turned around to look at me inquisitively.

"Go on ahead, Mar. I'll catch up with you soon," I shouted to her. She nodded and kept walking. We'd formed a strange, seemingly tentative friendship. It really wasn't a whole lot more than good acquaintances, and I wasn't sure how long it would last - whether or not she'd go back to her usual indifferent attitude around me when Dorcas came back, or whether we'd stay friends. I didn't really mind either way.

I wandered up to see what Grace and Lily wanted me for, and came face to face with one of the biggest woman I'd ever met. It wasn't that she was fat, it wasn't that kind of big, it was just that she was...big. Very broad shoulders, thick torso and wide hips. She reminded me a bit of Hagrid, the groundskeeper that James and Sirius hung out with from time to time, only bigger. Much bigger. She was at least twice his height.

"Zanna! This is Madame Maxime, she's the Headmistress of Beauxbatons. She wanted to meet you. Madame Maxime, this is Zanna Hale. She just came to Hogwarts this year. Zanna, didn't you say your father was going to send you there?"

"Pleased to meet you," I said politely. She didn't offer to shake hands, thankfully, otherwise my hand might have been crushed.

She nodded and returned the pleasantries. "May I ask vy you ended up 'ere, at 'ogwarts and not Beauxbaton?"

"My grandfather has custody of me, and he thought Hogwarts would be better than Beauxbaton. I'm not sure why. Something about me being more used to the heavier foods of Hogwarts or something." I shrugged, she didn't seem particularly offended about my comment on the food. If truth be told, I had no idea why I was sent here. He gave me reasons such as Hogwarts had the nicer food, better uniforms and that he thought Beauxbaton seemed more like a finishing school - even though it was co-ed- rather than Hogwarts which was more focused on education. Apparently my grandfather wasn't trying to prepare me to be a 'proper' upperclass Lady as was expected of so many Pureblood girls I knew in Bulgaria. Luckily for me, an arranged marriage had never been an option.

Ahe studied me curiously, as if she was scrutinizing me. It almost seemed as if she was weighing up wether or not I would have been am worthy addition to her prized school.  
"Hmpf," she said eventually. "You would 'ave been good at Beauxbaton, if you are who I think you are."

"Excuse me?"

She rolled her eyes impatiently. "Surely you are ze daughter of Rosanna Hale?"

I was startled, firstly by her abrupt line of questioning, and secondly because she knew my mother. How could she know that, if my mother was a Muggle?

I nodded slowly. Grace and Lily had slipped back to the horses and so were out of hearing distance.

"You are aware zhat your mother was a student at Beauxbaton, no?"

I shook my head, and looked her in the eye, completely confused. "I'm sorry, you must be thinking of someone else. My mother was a Muggle."

Wasn't she? I'd never seen her practice magic...but that didn't necessarily mean she was a Muggle...right?

"Are you quite sure?"

"Yes, now if you'll excuse me I have somewhere to be."

She frowned, but nodded. I turned and started walking back to the castle deep in thought. It wasn't possible. Although...Could she have been a squib? No. I cleared my head of these thoughts. She was a Muggle. No doubt about it.

"Oof!"

I fell over backwards, having run into something.

"I'm so sorry!" I started, accepting the hand that had been held out for me. "I wasn't looking where I..."

I trailed of as I looked into the eyes of a man who I hadn't seen in a very long time.

* * *

**A/N** Oops this is a bit late. Once again I am attempting weekly updates but uh, we all know how shite I am at updating.

Also the link keeps on screwing up, but the tumblr for this fic is on my profile. It ha picture's of Marlene's dress and people and you might want to check it out.

So, whose the mystery man? What's up with Madame Maxime, has she gone crazy? Go forth, my minions, and speculate!

I think I got all the typos etc, let me know if I missed any. Also, I apologize for the shoddy attempt at a French accent.

Please review and let me know what you though! Substantial reviews make my day.

xx

Liza


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